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by Kahvi, Roadstergal



Category: Red Dwarf
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Humor, M/M, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-07
Updated: 2013-07-07
Packaged: 2017-12-18 01:31:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 5
Words: 39,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/874143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kahvi/pseuds/Kahvi, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Roadstergal/pseuds/Roadstergal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a different universe there is no Red Dwarf. No Starbug. No David Lister, Arnold Rimmer, no Kryten, and certainly no Cat; his race does not exist. None of these things exist, because Red Dwarf is just an AR game in a shady arcade, where a random-seeming group of players have been stuck playing for five years...</p><p>...but that's not the reality in which Starbug's crew exist. They've established that. </p><p>Or have they?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> (Please note that all chapters are co-written; for some reason, I can't get AO3 to add Roadstergal as an author to each chapter.)

"Dimension jump complete."

Rimmer rubbed his torso, making sure it was still there and complete. He never could understand why the Computer always told him that they had just completed a DJ. It was not like any reasonable being could miss the sensation of having his body warped and twisted through an infinity of dimensions, then smashed back into shape in the target.

Well, maybe it was different for the _living_ Aces.

"Thank you, Computer," he said, adjusting the Ace voice to fit his mouth as he adjusted the wig to fit his head. "Any sign of our pals on the 'Bug?"

"Starbug is within communications range," she purred. After a moment, she spoke again, her voice slightly puzzled. "This is not the same lander you came from. It _is_ the Lister that you left behind, however."

Now _that_ was an oddity. "Are you sure?"

Her voice somehow managed to be both sensual and offended. "Of course I'm sure, Ace. The call signs do not match."

Rimmer munched on this oddity. Where would they have gotten another lander? Unless they had caught up with Red Dwarf - but no, there was no Dwarf in the vicinity. Had they caught it and lost it again? How the smeg could you lose a ship the size of a planet _twice_? It would take a special kind of idioticy, a grade-A smegup by any measure. Rimmer sighed and put his speculations aside. No matter. They would tell him what happened. "Open communications channels."

"Nobody is responding on the main communications channels," the Computer replied. "I am receiving an automated permission to dock."

What was supposed to be a routine landing was getting stranger by the minute. Rimmer shifted in his seat and pondered. He was a superstitious man, and he had the very distinct feeling that all of this was meant to send him a message. A Do Not Come Back message. A Don't Bother Resurrecting That Thing Between You And Lister message. A Turn Around And Smeg Off message.

"Shall we land, Ace?" the Computer asked sweetly.

Oh, smeg it all. There was nothing wrong with just _landing_. "I'm taking her in, Computer."

Rimmer popped the hatch of the ship and stepped out. Klaxons were sounding a panicky awoogah of alarm. Light bulbs that were presumably supposed to be flashing blue alert were flashing a dingy brownish-purple alert. He frowned at the empty landing bay. Where _was_ everyone? What the smeg was all of this alert-ing about? Rimmer spun at the sound of clanging metallic footsteps.

Kryten pounded into the landing bay, almost collapsing into the bacofoil-suited figure standing incongruously there. The person inside the suit grabbed his shoulders, and number of rather complicated gears started turning in Kryten's head. "Sir!" he gasped.

"Kryters, old chap!" Rimmer said, trying to project a faux heartiness at the annoying mechanoid. "What's the panic?"

"Sir, I need you to go fetch Mr. Lister! Nothing... erm... nothing... _dangerous_ or anything. No. No indeed. I just..." his voice synthesizers put in a slight note of panic, "need you to go get Mr. Lister _right now_." Perhaps there was still hope. Kryten had to believe that, or he'd go completely to nuts and bolts.

"Erm... certainly, Kryters. Where is he? In the loo?" Rimmer certainly understood Kryten's reluctance, if so. That was about all he understood. Klaxons? Blue Alert? Lister in deadly danger in his room? If Kryten could brave Lister's sock basket, what could fit in Lister's room to put him in such a panic?

"He's in his quarters, Sir. Now, you go do that while I fetch the Cat and M... " No. That would be a particularly unwise move, under the circumstances. He disguised the rest of the word in a patently fake cough, hoping that the general chaos of the situation would confuse Ace enough not to notice. "While I go fetch... Yes." Kryten ran off, glancing slightly back over his shoulder. He was certain this would work. Well, it had to, didn't it? Otherwise... Well, otherwise it was nuts and bolts time.

Rimmer watched Kryten leave, furrowing his brow as if a rational explanation would get stuck in the creases if he frowned hard enough. Rational explanations aside, however, he had come back in order to talk to Lister, hadn't he? Not to mention that if Lister were in trouble, well, getting people out of trouble was Ace's smegging _job_. Even grotty space-bums, though they were not his preferred clientele.

The corridor layout was different from the old Starbug, certainly. Rimmer pulled open the door that should have belonged to his old quarters, and faced an array of brooms. He walked down to the next door down, hoping it was the entrance to Lister's quarters. Pillowcases fell on his head. He picked them up and stuffed them into the closet, closing the door behind him. "Smeg!" he hissed, quietly, in his own voice. He opened the next door, resignedly. Ah, yes. It was most definitely a door leading to a standard JMC temporary bunk space - not identical to the one he remembered, but definitely a Listerine living space. A bunk on one side, covered with a soft red throw. Socks and underwear scattered on the ground. Posters of Zero-Gee football players and women in bikinis on the wall. Lister stepping out of the shower, wrapping a towel around his waist. Rimmer did a double-take.

Lister was not happy. The first time in nearly a week they'd had enough water rations for him to take a proper shower - and yeah, he did shower often enough for that to matter to him, thanks so very much to _Kris_ and her oh-so-funny jibes on that subject! First time in - oh - eight days, bound to be; that's when they'd escaped Red Dwarf, wasn't it? And some idiot bangs a coffee mug or their elbow on the Alert button? Or maybe a certain mechanoid had finally given in, despite all their fervent warnings, and given their consoles as sponge-bath? Well, at least they'd be clean, which was more than Lister could say for himself at the moment. "Kryten, what the smeg is going on here?" He yelled it out, hoping someone could hear him through the racket, focusing on his towel.

"Oh! Er, I..." Rimmer swallowed. The man had changed since Rimmer had last seen him. He was a little older, and the age suited him well. The laugh lines around his mouth and eyes had deepened, and he was more slender and broad-shouldered than Rimmer remembered. Rimmer was very pointedly reminded of why he had come back. But he had come back to _talk_ about this, not to... Rimmer pointed at the door, then himself. "Yes."

Still dripping wet, Lister adjusted the towel around his waist. Goited thing wouldn't stay up. He'd never quite gotten the hang of tying them neatly. He'd considered asking Cat, but that would have gotten very weird, very quickly. That's not the sort of things guys casually ask one another. 'Excuse me man, could you help me tie this towel around my naked body.' No. He frowned at the flannel annoyance.

Rimmer backed up to leave, bumping into the door that had slid shut behind him. "Sorry."

There seemed to be a second layer of sound, something underneath all the braying sirens. Truth be told, it sounded awfully familiar. Like... Lister looked up. And looked. And kept looking. Finally, his mouth felt it had been kept out of commission long enough, and tried to contribute something. "A... R... Wh..." Well, what did you say to your returning holographic former lover, anyway? 'Nice to see you, fancy a snog?'

Rimmer was obviously intruding on Lister's shower. Hell, how was he supposed to know? The man took them so rarely! "Sorry, I didn't mean to bother you when..." He slapped the Door Open switch. The door did not open.

Stupid towel, Lister thought, wringing the edges of it uselessly. "Is it... I mean..." Because there was that, wasn't there? It looked like Rimmer, and sounded like him, through that silly Ace-speak. Lister's libido had a thing or two to say about authenticity; mainly, that it didn't matter a twonking bit, but Lister tried his best not to listen to that part of his psyche these days. He swallowed, stepping just a little closer as the klaxons died down. It might not be _him_. Might not be the same body he'd lashed into submission with his tongue, though it damned as smeg looked like it.

This was the smegging emergency that had upset Starbug? Lister taking a smegging _shower_? They had really gone to the smeghouse, hadn't they? Rimmer slapped the Door Open switch again. The damn thing was malfunctioning. The relays were probably stuck with old lager foam. "Look, I'm sorry - I stopped by to say hello, Kryters told me to fetch you. I obviously interrupted your... shower thing... I'll..." Rimmer waved, "...midsection... we can have tea." He wrenched at the door, but it was wedged firmly in place.

Lister stepped even closer. "Is it you?" he asked, with a little more urgency. Now that the initial shock was over, it was coming back to him; the dreams, the guilt keeping him awake at nights. Yeah, it looked like him, but what were the odds, in a multiverse as goited up as the one they lived in?

Oh, is that what the man wanted to know. Rimmer leaned close, hissing in his own voice, "Yes, it's smegging me."

With a small noise, almost like a yelp, Lister grabbed hold of that impossible dead man and very abruptly drew him into a bone-crushing hug. He felt like Rimmer, too. _His_ Rimmer. Smelled like him, even, ghastly after-shave and all. "Thank God!"

Rimmer choked with surprise. "I thought you were an atheist," he said, startled.

"I thought I'd killed you!"

"You're going to!" Rimmer yelped at the tightness of the hug. Not that it was potentially damaging, but it was bringing up very visceral reactions that were not going to help the conversation he needed to have.

Perhaps it would be all right if he relaxed the hug a little. It just seemed that, if he did, anything might happen. Rimmer might... Hell. Rimmer. Rimmer was back. Lister did relax the hug slightly, and looked up. Moisture fell from his lashes onto his face, irritating his eyes. But he hadn't had time to lather up yet. Maybe it wasn't soap. There were all sorts of 'maybe's, all of a sudden.

"Er... lovely to see you again..." Rimmer gave him a nervous pat on the shoulders. "What was Kryten on about?" Rimmer looked at the stubbornly closed door. No way in Hades had Kryten sounded Vaguely Brownish-Purple Alert for a shower. What was going on?

Yes, lovely. A lovely face. That had just asked him a question about something or other. Kryten? What did he have to do with anything? "What? I don't know." Lister laughed, quickly. It seemed like such an easy thing to do, now. "Yer alive..." The towel was slipping, but that hardly seemed to matter anymore. If it wanted to slip, it damn well could; he was not one to make choices for other things. Or people. He let it slide.

"Not really," Rimmer replied, almost reflexively.

"You know. Less dead than you could be."

Rimmer sighed and put his Ace voice back on again. It was useful to not have to be Arnold Rimmer when Lister was standing there, wearing only a towel (and barely that), looking good enough to eat. No, good enough to lick and suck. "Hey, Davey-boy - why not grab some clothes? We can get some tea, talk..."

Lister looked at him askew. "Why you talking like that, then? Doesn't suit you, man." He removed his towel un-self-consciously, putting it in wet pile on the table. Better off than on, really. Wasn't doing him no favors.

Rimmer pulled in a sharp breath. _Naked_. Legs. Firm erection. It was getting a little difficult to think. "It's who I am, these days..." Lister licked his wet lips and played with his own wet hair. Rimmer tried not to stare at that tongue, at those hands, at the thick wet braid being fiddled between those hands, at the drops of water splatting on his torso, his erection... On the whole, he was not doing a very good job of not staring.

"So yer not the same, then?" Lister held his gaze steady. The Ace-persona seemed to fit Rimmer better, like a pair of well-worn-in jeans. But it was just that; part of a costume, something you put on. And after a while, Lister reasoned, it would have to start to chafe.

"Not exactly." Rimmer swallowed. "Changes you, this job."

Lister nodded. "I suppose that could be good, in a way." There were sides of Rimmer, after all, that Lister would not have minded losing somewhere in the multidimensional morass Ace traversed. His hang-ups, his neuroses, his weird obsessions with roadside erections... But the important bits, the bits that made him _him_ \- those were undeniably still there. Lister looked into those skeptical hazel eyes and saw them wave hello. "But I can tell yer still _you_."

"Well, yes." Rimmer tried to figure out what to do with his hands. Some part of him wanted to reach out and touch that wet skin. The rest of him sounded Undefined Mauve-ish Brown Alerts of his own about what that would lead to. He settled for crossing his arms.

"Still can never look at me naked without turning away." Lister grinned.

That was completely appropriate discretion and modesty, wasn't it? Rimmer looked at his boots. "No."

Lister stepped a little closer. "Why is that, then?"

"Because... you..." Rimmer sighed and dropped the Ace voice. "Look, this is one of the things I came back to talk about." He had made a list. Damn it, he should have brought the list. It was so neat and orderly! Every thought he had about this topic was laid out in the proper order of discussion, with relevant subheadings for more in-depth discussion. He was so sure he would remember it without the hard copy! But no, Lister had driven it right out of his mind. Maybe he should go back and get the thing.

"Oh, right?" The man loved to talk, didn't he? Though it didn't seem, by the way his eyes kept flickering towards various parts of Lister, the way his voice wavered back and forth between Ace and Arn, that it was the most important thing on his mind right now.

Rimmer heard wet footsteps and peeked up. "Yes! You and I..." Lister met his gaze with eager eyes. "Look, it's hard to talk with you... like that!" Wet. Naked. Glowing. Erect.

"Sorry... I could put some clothes on..." He _could_. It was perfectly possible. But then he'd just want to take them off again straight away. Lister's mouth fell open a little, perhaps, the thought, because breathing had seemed to become so very difficult all of a sudden. In, out, in, out... It was hard. Very much so.

Rimmer grasped that concept like an old friend. Clothes, preferably baggy ones, hiding body and skin and dark nipples and erection. "Yes, that would help." He pushed back against the stubborn smegging door.

"Yeah. Clothes." Yes, clothes existed, it was true.

"Clothes..." Rimmer repeated, weakly.

Lister whimpered, moving even closer - it was impossible not to, now that he _could_. "Smeg, man, it's been _years..._ "

"I know," Rimmer replied, his voice flat. _He_ had waited for years, after Lister had smegging driven him out, hadn't he? Years of development to become a smegging Space Hero, to be smegging _worthy_ of Lister's affection? Or was it affection at all, and Lister just wanted a mouth on him? Yes, that was item number two on the list. Or was it number one? "So... no sense in rushing in now..."

Drops of water fell off of Lister's lower lip onto the uniform that was part of what made Rimmer Ace. Lister looked down at it, following the water's trail down the shimmering fabric towards the groin of whoever was inside those trousers. He looked up again into a frozen face that was all Arn. Oh hell, _Arn_. This was too unreal. Too good, wasn't it? "I'm afraid you'll go away. This isn't just a dream or something, is it? Or some un-reality pocket or some smeg like that?"

"No, no." Rimmer grabbed the subject eagerly. He knew about reality bubbles. They were common across the dimensions - as minefields, as defensive weapons, as offensive weapons, as an interrogation tactic. Rimmer knew his smegging reality bubbles inside-out. They were a much safer subject for his mind to grapple with than a naked Lister. "The Computer told me all about reality bubbles. They have characteristics, you see. You can tell if you're in one."

Lister was not really listening, focusing instead on Rimmer's lips as they moved. It was fascinating. "Oh, eh?"

"This isn't one. I'll bet you that none of the five key giveaways are present. I can show you..." Rimmer extended his hand, prepared to tick them off.

"Maybe later..."

"Yes, after we talk a bit. You know, about... all of that... before I left." Rimmer could not keep wariness out of his voice. Or bitterness. But smeg it, they belonged there.

"Yeah..." Lister swallowed, close enough that the Ace uniform was getting wet. Soon it would cling to Rimmer's skin, pressing against it like Lister wanted to. "You know, Arn?"

"What?"

Lister shook. So close now, so close. Hell, _hell_ ; there was only so much a man could take! "You talk too much." He lunged in to kiss Rimmer, ready to take the consequences. And there would be consequences, if he knew the man at all. It would be worth it though; feeling those lips on his again would be worth most anything.

"Lister!" Rimmer tried to grab him by the shoulders. "Not now..." No, not until after he had gotten just one smegging item on his list discussed. Was that too much to ask? One smegging item? His penis thought it was, and he tried to ignore it.

Oh. _That_ Rimmer. Hologrammatic hands slipped on Lister's wet shoulders, and he broke away unhappily.

Steady and authoritative, Rimmer thought; that's the ticket. A man's voice is a token of his character, and you are Ace Rimmer, smeg it all! "Look... I..." He failed; it cracked. He cleared his throat.

Lister panted, staring blankly at the returning Space Hero. He was shivering, a little cold - still smegging sogging wet! What did the man want? Some sort of written application? Had Lister not brushed his teeth well enough that morning? Was he using the wrong sort of deodorant?

"I came back to talk with you, not shag you!" Rimmer paused. That was not at all true. "I mean... not... not first thing, not even a hello, how have you been..."

Lister choked. "Arn... I... that's not how I..." He twisted his wet braid. "I _touch_! I _feel_! I _do_ things!"

Rimmer sighed. "Look, just what the smeg is going on, here? I come back, the klaxons are awoogahing. Kryten is in mechano-panic and sends me here to fetch you like you're on smegging fire. Then I get locked in here with..." Rimmer waved his hand at Lister's erection. Lister raised an eyebrow at that, sullenly. "Forgive me for being a little off!" Rimmer finished.

A little off. A little off. Yes. Get off. On and off. In and out. Lister made a visible effort to calm himself down. Have to do this slow, or not at all. You owe the smegger that much, considering... well, considering. "Sorry. I forgot... I mean, it's been years, yeah?"

"Yes."

"All this time, I've been thinking about you. How this might happen, you know?" Lister looked up. "I suppose I forgot how you work." He smiled briefly, remembering the various ways in which Rimmer worked. Some of them weren't too bad, at that.

How he worked? Just what the smeg was that supposed to mean? That he didn't rip off his clothes and start shagging the moment he saw Lister, as if nothing had happened to stop them from sleeping together? Rimmer frowned. "Er... yes."

"So - hello." Lister's smile warmed.

"Hello."

"How are you?"

"Peachy keen. You?" Rimmer started to relax slightly. The conversation was unforgivably tense, but the meaningless ritual of words gave his mind time to sort through things. Such as trying to remember what number two on the list was. It had been pretty damn important - he could remember thinking that, at the time.

"A little wet, but quite perky, thanks." Horny as hell, more like, but oddly relaxed too, now that Rimmer seemed to be, finally.

"Yes... I noticed."

"Still dead?"

"Yes. No cure for that as yet. Still Lister?" Rimmer asked, snarkily. Number two. Something about what was left.

"As much as I'll ever be." Possibly more, now that Rimmer was here. Funny how that worked. It was as though the man amplified him, made him stand out stronger just by virtue of being so very _not_ him.

"Which is plenty." Rimmer smiled weakly. Number two danced out of his mental grasp as Lister shifted from foot to foot, his erection bobbing hypnotizingly.

Lister shook his hair; wet trails trickled down his front and back. "Yeah." He paused, taking in Rimmer's darting eyes. Well, he thought, this is what you wanted - conversation. I'm open to other suggestions! "How's the talking working for ya so far? I'm rather enjoying it!" He smiled cheekily. Given that it seemed to be frustrating Rimmer somewhat, Lister was ready to talk all night now, if need be.

"It's great. Er, you look chilly." Number two would not make an appearance as long as Lister was distracting him like that, Rimmer decided. He whipped off his coat and handed it over to Lister.

Lister took it automatically and draped it over his shoulders, looking at Rimmer's exposed tight-fitting shirt. "Thanks..."

"Yes. Look... I..." Rimmer sighed. "It's hard to sit down and spit all of this out, you know. I was expecting something a little less... acute in the way of greeting."

"Sorry..." What had Rimmer expected? A firm handshake? A polite nod? Lister had assumed, given that Rimmer had bothered to come back, that he had done so for a reason. A fairly Lister-related reason. Of course, the dark place in his mind that had been growing steadily over the last months prodded at him, he could be wrong. Maybe Rimmer really was just here to talk; talk about things that had nothing whatsoever to do with Lister _or_ any kind of relations. At least not the kind of relations Lister was interested in. He hung his head.

"Ever since we," Rimmer made a vague hand gesture to communicate sex, "I've been a little" he made another hand gesture to indicate confusion and a little neurotic worry. That was a lot to cram in a gesture, but Rimmer decided that he had pulled it off rather well. Lister certainly seemed interested enough. "And then when you" Rimmer pointed in the direction of the landing bay, waving his hand in what he hoped was a suitably wavy DJ-shippy manner, "I felt a little," Rimmer whipped his hand about. "So I decided I should come back and," Rimmer tried to make a hash-things-out-to-catharsis hand gesture. "You know."

Lister looked at the last hand gesture as if trying to spell it out. "Er, right."

"To see if," Rimmer made a you-me hand gesture, and Lister nodded, "was really... you know."

Lister nodded. Rimmer was good at this talking business, he could tell.

"So." Rimmer felt some relief. It wasn't exactly the list, but maybe Lister had gotten the idea. "Now you know why I came back."

"Yeah, see, Arn, I already sort of gathered."

"Oh."

"But that was some good talking," Lister said, quite earnestly, blowing a mental raspberry at the dark place in his mind.

Rimmer nodded. "So what do you have to say?"

A fair question, but easy enough to answer sincerely. "Thank you."

Rimmer frowned. _Thank you_? "For what?"

"For coming back. For not dying. You know. More than ya already have. For letting me be - well - me, and twonking ya up like that. For... you know..." Lister said, a little nervousness to his annoyance shining through, "not thinking I'm a twat, hopefully."

Rimmer felt his face twisting into a wry grin. Maybe that was answer enough - for the moment. "So... you missed me."

Daft question time again, was it? Lister's face lit up a little, a counterpoint to the anger in his voice. "'Course I did! I... er..." He wasn't quite sure what to feel anymore, much less what to think. It was a little much, really.

"I missed you, too, Listy." Simple truth, although simple truth was not something Rimmer was used to communicating, when it wasn't an offensive truth.

"Heh..." Lister looked at Rimmer, searchingly, without really knowing why. Since when had help ever come from that direction? And smeg knew he couldn't have read that face if it had been tattooed with a copy of the Space Corps directives. Rimmer's wry grin turned into a frown, and he twisted his hands together. Lister shifted a little, suddenly feeling the full weight of the jacket on his shoulders. It shouldn't be _that_ heavy, should it?

Rimmer sighed. "Maybe I seemed a little... rude just now. But this was all a little abrupt."

"No... no..." Lister replied, breathlessly.

"I've been thinking it over for a good long time."

"You need to... take yer time. And that." Close your mouth, Lister admonished himself; you look like a git.

"Yes," Rimmer said, with relief. Were they actually on the same page? For the first time ever?

"It's just..." Lister fumbled with the jacket, "you know. Missed ya. For a while." The goited thing kept trying to slide off of his shoulders.

"Yes. I wouldn't have come back, you know, if I didn't miss you."

"And seeing ya... it's... well..." Lister tried not to indicate his erection, which had been wavering back and forth in confusion, wondering if it would be needed or not.

Rimmer swallowed. "Yes." His memory was pointedly prodding him. The sex had been rather magnificent, even compared to the sex he had gotten as Ace. He slid off of the door slightly.

Now that Lister wasn't holding it anymore, the jacket finally gave up, sliding to the floor. Lister looked at it briefly, as though it were only a passing inconvenience, then looked back at Rimmer, which, all things considered, was a lot more interesting to look at. Rimmer returned his gaze steadily, his hands still working as though they were trying to compose even more complicated signs. Lister wanted to move - oh, did he ever! - but something held him back. Because, well, if he moved, then anything could happen, couldn't it? He'd had dreams like this, and some of them had ended well. Some of them had ended _very_ well indeed, but yet others had culminated in Rimmer turning into a mutant space-goat, donning a top hat and spats, and singing the national anthem of Titan.

Rimmer stepped forward, mesmerized by Lister's... Smeg, by everything Lister.

Lister kept steady, swaying a little back and forth on his feet. No top hats yet. Good. That was good.

Rimmer touched Lister's cheek, lightly and gently. Wet, his fingertips volunteered, helpfully. Soft and warm, they added, and suggested a few other things it might be good to touch.

No braying, no singing, no tapdancing, Lister mused, leaning into the offered touch and closing his eyes. Oh hell, this was _real_. This was them, here and now, in smegging reality!

Rimmer rubbed that cheek, then slid his hand to back of Lister's head, winding his fingers through that wirey hair. "Listy... god..." he sighed, all pretense of Ace forgotten.

Lister's hair was still dripping; the water was a little cold. His eye opened again, seeing the wanting mixed with fear in Rimmer's face. And in Lister there was nothing but urgent invitation, in his eyes and in his wet, tan body.

Rimmer saw the invitation, and decided that it would be impolite not to RSVP. He leaned down and touched his lips to Lister's, just relishing their softness, feeling Lister shiver. Lister kept still, but the slight movement of his shivers made water from his hair shake lose, and a few drops fell down his face, running between their lips. The feel was unbelievably erotic, and Rimmer started to lick the water off of Lister's lips. Oh, smeg it all. Rimmer gave in, opening his mouth to invite a deeper kiss, gasping, "Lister..."

It was hard to whimper with your tongue sliding in and out of someone's mouth, but Lister tried nonetheless. "Arn..."

Rimmer grasped Lister's back with his other hand, pulling the man tight as he kissed Lister deeply. He rubbed hair with one hand and skin with the other, working his lips on Lister's, stroking that long tongue with his own. He rubbed his erection against Lister's stomach, his mind all but gone to lust.

If he wrapped his arms tightly enough around Rimmer, Lister reasoned, he might not go away. Lister leaned into the embrace, sucking in an upper lip and pawing at that interfering undershirt, bunching the fabric, licking at Rimmer's face those few times he had to break for breath.

That would not do. Rimmer broke away to rip off his undershirt. "I need you, Lister," he said, his voice muffled by cloth. The wig was pulled off by the shirt's passing. Rimmer tossed them both aside.

"Hell, I need you..." Lister moaned, as Rimmer moved close again. Wet braids slapped around both their bodies like towels in homo-erotic frat-boy rituals, leaving soggy trails. He pulled at the waistline of Rimmer's absurd trousers, pulling him even closer almost angrily.

Trousers. Lister's hands. Rimmer, delirious with lust, decided that Lister's hands would be better occupied with what was _inside_ of the trousers. He unsnapped them. Lister exhaled deeply and slid down Rimmer; the action aided by his still slightly-slick body. Rimmer gasped at the direction. God, Lister had a mouth that could do things... things he very much wanted. Strike that. He needed them. He needed that mouth to suck him in, that tongue to lash at the base of his head. "Suck me, Listy..." he said, plaintively.

Those words... Lister's hands were already grabbing hard-light buttock, and he gripped them hard, groaning. It would have to do for an answer, for now. He pulled Rimmer's underpants down. Rimmer's erection sprang out, as if giving a cheery greeting. Hello there, Lister thought. Are you real? Am I actually doing this and not just jerking off in my sleep? His hands moved back to Rimmer's buttocks, caressing them roughly. They certainly felt solid enough. Hard light, he thought, breathing on the erection.

"Yes," Rimmer moaned. He liked where this was going. Lister feathered it with his lips. Even better. "Oh. Yes. That's good."

"This'll be better," Lister mumbled, swallowing Rimmer's cock from head to base, devouring it like the starving man he was. The tastelessness - he'd forgotten about it. How could it be so delicious when there was no flavor? He played his tongue around the shaft, rubbing the head against the roof of his mouth, relishing in the solidity of it all.

Rimmer almost yelped. His memory had played him false; that warm, wet mouth was even more intense than he remembered. He had wanted to _talk_ instead of this? He must have been mad. He took Lister's head in his hands, shaking with want.

Lister sucked hard, holding on to Rimmer's buttocks, using them to draw him in even deeper. It had been too long, too long since he'd done this last; memories flooded him, memories of beds and late-night showers and years of quiet _longing_ , and loss and pain and more longing, mixing with the pleasure of _now_. He kept sucking, licking, because he just could not feel it strongly enough, like there was an odd sense of...

Lister collapsed on the floor, bewildered, panting. He was wearing clothes. Why was he wearing clothes?

Rimmer stared at a dingy ceiling, pulling in air for a whine that he had no particular reason for. He had been on the point of orgasm, but he was lying on his back, the stimulation that had brought him close now gone. He reached for his erection to finish himself off; his hand met fabric. But Lister had ripped his trousers off! His penis was limp through the cloth. What had happened?

A few moments of frantic scrambling on the floor brought Lister to his feet. He looked around. Dull off-white walls everywhere, imposing in their sullen silence. There was a deadness in the air, a slight smell of disinfectant. Where was Rimmer? There was a bunk, and Lister's eyes were drawn to it as to a horrible car-accident. They showed him Rimmer. Rimmer lying on a bunk, wearing an off-white jumpsuit to match those walls - dirty, creased. Like after years of use. Lister froze, then scrambled back against the wall.

"The smeg?" Rimmer groaned, sitting up. Lister was back against the wall, wearing a dingy jumpsuit that might have been white once. Something seemed off about him. Well, aside from the fact that he was clothed and not sucking Rimmer.

"Hell..." Lister croaked, hugging himself. "No. No. _No!_ " He was yelling, batting away at the logic his brain insisted would explain this situation.

"What?" Rimmer asked, confused, rubbing his head. It ached.

"SMEGGING HELL, NO!" Lister shrieked, looking at Rimmer's hair, his face, lined in a different way, the shaking of his usually rock-steady hands.

"What?" Rimmer asked again, frustrated. He frowned as Lister turned around to bang his fist against the wall. "Lister, what the smegging smeg is going on?"

Lister turned back to Rimmer, rushing over to him, pulling at his own long, wavy hair. "Look at me! Look at us!" He grasped Rimmer's thighs.

Rimmer looked down at himself, so far beyond confusion that he felt eerily calm. "What?"

A window hung on the wall, trying very hard to pretend it was not a two-way mirror. This was aided by the fact that it wasn't a mirror so much as a dull plate of glass, but it would show a reflection in a pinch. Lister pulled Rimmer over to it, nodding aggressively at their joint reflections.

Rimmer looked, frowning. The frowning face of Good Old Billy Doyle looked back at him, with his mass-murdering brother Sebastian next to him, wide-eyed. Rimmer shook his head, with certainty. "This isn't reality, Lister. We already established that." A thought suddenly sprang into his head - a thought that explained all of it. Perfectly. "It's a reality bubble. Starbug must have hit one. That's why Kryten was so panicky."

"Then why the smeg are we here again??"

"The reality bubble. They can take their forms from fears. This is not a real reality. The five signs, Listy!"

Of course! Rimmer would know this - he was Ace now, wasn't he? Yes, that made sense. It was about the only thing that did, just now. "Right, right! Let's have them then!"

Rimmer extended his hand and tapped his index finger. Oh, yes, he knew reality bubbles. "Well, for starters, in an artificial reality, you can't actually have sex. It's something about the basic motivators in the brain. They don't get fooled." He could bless the creators of reality bubbles, sometimes. Rescuing fair maidens from them was an extended form of foreplay, as they always wanted to make sure they were back in real reality, as it were. "Secondly. Er, secondly, you can't... well... excrete. Really. You can pee."

"Right. Erm..." Lister folded his arms, feeling somewhat uncomfortable. This wasn't making as much sense as he'd hoped for. "Any others?"

"Two of them are specific to females," Rimmer muttered, ticking off two more fingers and trying not to think about _those_. "Can we skip them?"

"I think we may have to."

"Good. The last is you can't get drunk. No matter how much alcohol you put away. It just doesn't affect you correctly."

"Right." Lister considered this, looking at the blank cell walls. Was it a cell? Did it matter? He sighed, internally. "Well, there's no booze in here..."

"No."

"No..." Lister gave Rimmer a you-might-have-been-alone-in-space-with-a-computer-for-too-long look, "toilets..."

"No." No sense in ticking them all off. There was only one that was applicable. And Rimmer rather liked the idea of the two of them getting out of this reality bubble using the first sign. Rimmer licked his lips as he walked back over to the bunk.

Lister sighed and started walking. It had always helped him think, walking. It gave his body something to do while his brain was busy. "All right. All right." He waved his hands, as though trying to form an answer out of thin air. This level of thinking required keeping more than just his legs occupied.

Rimmer unzipped his jumpsuit. "It's not reality. I swear." It just made far too much sense for it to be a reality bubble. Occam's Razor said it was.

"So if this _is_ a reality pocket, and we have sex, it'll stop, yeah?" There was some appeal in that idea, Lister thought, but at the same time...

_Bubbles_ , Rimmer thought with exasperation. _Bubbles_ , Listy, not _pockets_. It's not a hot lunchtime snack! "Yes. We'll pop right out. I've done it before."

"But if it _isn't_ a reality pocket, and we have sex, we'll have had sex with..." Lister swallowed, looking at Rimmer. He'd never had any brothers or sisters, but the idea of sex between siblings had always been high atop the list of things guaranteed to turn him off. There seemed to be a fundamental _wrongness_ to it that hit him at very visceral level.

"It's not reality! I know it isn't!" No way in smegging hell was he Billy Doyle. He was Ace smegging Rimmer.

"But what if it is!"

"What if pigs fly?" Rimmer pulled his jumpsuit off. Why didn't Lister smegging trust him? How many reality bubbles had _that_ smegger gotten out of on his own?

I'm not interested, Lister told himself as Rimmer undressed. It's not really my brother, not really, but I'm not bloody interested. Not the time or place. He wished Rimmer would just stop it, stop taking those greasy, not-really-there overalls off his not-really-there body so that Lister could stop bloody staring at him! "There has to be some other way," he said, weakly.

"You're welcome to try the other two." Rimmer started to stroke his penis. His hand was shaking, and he irritably told it that he had done this _so_ many times before. No problem.

"We can't. And besides, how would you know if you couldn't have a shit or not?" Lister said, somewhat deliriously. This logical puzzle, such as it was, helped distract him for a few, welcome moments. "I mean, what if you just couldn't go? Erm..." He looked at the penis in Rimmer's hand. Well. So much for distraction.

"I never tried that one. I don't... excrete anyway," Rimmer muttered. Thank the stars. _That_ would be a smegging dull way out of a reality bubble.

"Bloody hell..." Lister mumbled, feeling himself rush over and kiss Rimmer hard. There was no resisting this. There never had been. That was the trouble. Except he couldn't for the life of him remember why that was such a problem.

Yes, _that_ was more like it. Rimmer moaned, opening his mouth to give Lister better access. He shifted to lie fully on the bunk, pulling Lister atop him.

Lister scrambled onto him as though his life depended on it, licking at Rimmer's chest. He tore off his own jumpsuit; it fell off in tatters and tears, but he was oblivious. Lust, so long denied, tore at him as he tore at his clothes, any pretense of restraint falling away like the threadbare remains did to the floor. How many years? Felt like his entire life, a lifetime of wanting and never having. But now he had, and he was damn well taking it all. _All of it_.

Rimmer gasped. His erection was full and hard; he grabbed Lister's hips once they were free. "Yes." He felt Lister lick his way down his chest, taking his cock in his mouth and sucking it in rather violently. "Yes, Lister..." Rimmer groaned, bucking. Oh, it would be a smegger to pop out of the bubble before climaxing, but damn it all, they would go right back to this, if he knew anything about lust-for-brains Lister.

Not wanting to pause to breathe, much less to talk, Lister mumbled through frenzied licks. "Not true, dammit, not true!" He sucked the cock straight back in again; his own erection was as hard as rock against Rimmer's thigh.

"No," Rimmer moaned, trying to sound assuring, but his thought processes fragmented as he came, hard, into Lister's mouth. "Yes, gah, Lister, yes!"

It was wrong, it was all wrong; all of this was permeated with a sickening feeling of _not-right_ ness. Lister choked a little on the semen that shouldn't be there, that should disappear once it left Rimmer's body - but this wasn't Rimmer's body, was it? No, he couldn't think about that; he had to concentrate, swallow it down, keep sucking until there was nothing more to suck out. He shook, wanting to gag, to vomit, because it all just felt so damned unfamiliar. But he needed release, needed for this to be over so he could get back home and be himself again. Wrong, he thought again, gasping for breath and letting the limp cock fall out of his mouth. Wrong.

Rimmer shivered and moaned, shaking with the intensity of how smegging _good_ it had all felt. Like he had been wanting it for decades. Well, he _had_ , hadn't he? So long ago, him and Lister, it seemed...

"Not _true_!" Lister mumbled again, bucking against Rimmer's hip as if the action would underline this fact.

Rationality tugged at Rimmer. They were still in the bubble. That hadn't gotten them out, had it? Smeg, it must not have been enough. "No, it's not..." he said in an agonized wail, pulling up on Lister, trying to get at his mouth. The man was not hard to lead; he was still aggressive as hell, still bucking and grinding against Rimmer like a madman. "Probably just... not enough, yet. I've only done this with women." Rimmer frowned. "And I _did_ it, smeg it all..." He kissed Lister, licking his mouth, the taste of semen overwhelming the taste of cigarette butts. No - there was no taste of cigarette butts, at all.

"Then _finish me off_ , dammit!" Lister panted, desperate. He was all need now, the whys and hows having gotten lost somewhere along the way.

Rimmer reached down to grasp Lister's erection. But no, that might not be enough to get them out. They had to do this _correctly_ , smeg it all. It had always stopped at penetration, with the women he had done this with. Not at foreplay. He licked his fingers, using them to apply saliva to himself. He had never done this before, but smeg, that should pop them right out of the bubble. "We have to do this _right_ ," he barked, cringing at the desperation in his voice.

"Wh... wha?" Lister gasped, not all there.

Rimmer licked his fingers again, applying more saliva to himself. He licked his left hand and smeared saliva on Lister's erection, hurrying. They needed to get this over with. Get out of there.

The realization of what Rimmer was trying to do hit Lister like a shock, and he shivered even more - shaking, almost. Yes, that was what he needed. Most than anything. Intensity, feeling, _release!_

Rimmer tensed as he used his fingers to spread himself. But his fingers slid in with disconcerting ease, almost as if his body were used to it. This nagged at his mind, but his mind was full of things nagging at it. No matter. Just get _out_ of there. He licked his hand and rubbed more saliva on Lister's erection, then tried to guide it in, biting his lip. One moment of pain, then they would be out. Just one moment. Enough to bear, Rimsy, he told himself. Ice-cold sweat trickled down his spine.

Lister needed no further prompting; he was unfazed by the ease of it all, crazed as he was with lust and wanting. He pushed in, losing himself in blissful, uncomplicated pleasure, driving urgently for _more_.

Hell. Rimmer almost wailed. There was almost no pain at all; Lister slid in like the way were paved for him, filling Rimmer in a way that felt - too strangely familiar. But as he bottomed out, pleasure flooded Rimmer, and he moaned and arched slightly, relishing the intense sensation. He felt Lister's hands on his hip and shoulder as he thrust harder and faster, grunting with the effort. Rimmer grasped his own penis and stroked, but it was doggedly limp. This reality bubble must have given him a body with one of those refractory periods he had read about. No matter - this internal delight more than made up for it. He let himself be carried away by Lister's thrusts. Yes, Lister's.

"Not... true..." Lister moaned, through clenched teeth. Harder, he had to push harder, push it all away. Make it stop, make the feelings ripping his insides apart stop, make this whole not-real place go away!

"No... no..." The words were just sounds with no meaning, all part of this lovely smegging fullness in him, the roughness of the hands on him such a perfect complement to it. "No, Lister, oh, no."

Lister bottomed out, pressing against Rimmer (yes, dammit, Rimmer!) as the other hiked himself up to try to kiss him. Lister kissed back, awkwardly but desperately, tearing up. He didn't know why he was tearing up, just like he didn't know why all this pleasure was tinged with shame and guilt. He didn't know anything anymore, it seemed, except that he _needed_ more of this, no matter the consequences.

Rimmer licked at Lister's lips, then pulled back to gasp in air he did not usually need, his body strange - too strange, too alive, smeg - far too thrilled by all of this.

"It's," Lister gasped, thrusting, gritting his teeth "not," a harder, deeper thrust, drive it away, had to drive it all away, "real!" he cried, coming hard with the next and final thrust, pushing down, gasping, all energy drained out of him.

Rimmer found he was almost crying with the intensity of it - of the man inside and atop him, so close, like he had been _needing_ this, like he had never had anything but bread and water, and had suddenly been given a banquet. "God, Lister..." he panted, grasping Lister's hips.

There was nothing. No fading of the background, no flashing back to reality, not even the quiet, contented post-coital calm he'd felt back when... when had that been? Had they ever been this close? Lister realized he was crying, holding on to Rimmer as though they were still going at it. "Smeg, Arn..." he gasped into a warm, living neck. Tears were trickling down onto it as Lister shook, muttering. "Love you... Don't... can't..."

Rimmer pulled him tight. "Dave," he sighed. He started to stroke Lister's hair. His hand touched the soft, smooth pile, and he quickly moved his hand to Lister's back. Smeg. Something was... or rather, wasn't...

Lister bit his lower lip very hard indeed, glad of the hurt and distraction that gave. There was very little else he could think of to do. His mind was a blank, but a disturbing one, as though it was preparing for the onslaught of something. He could almost feel it, lurking somewhere around the area he didn't know was called his amygdale.

Well, Rimmer had only done this with women. He cleared his throat and spoke firmly and decisively. He spoke with authority. He was smegging Ace Rimmer, after all. "We must have done something wrong."

"We didn't do anything wrong, Arn." Lister's voice was flat, like he felt, and calm, like he wasn't.

"Yes. Arn. Dave." Rimmer emphasized those names. "This isn't real."

Lister tried to hide against Rimmer's neck, but there was precious little comfort there. Part of him wanted to recoil at this closeness, and he was rather worried about that. He was starting to worry about a lot of things. "Feck no, it can't be... It can't be."

"It isn't," Rimmer said, his voice reassuring enough to console a roomful of distraught men. Like the one he was in.

Lister raised himself up for a moment. "No, look. If this was real, we'd have memories, yeah? Like they told us we would? And we're not, right?"

"Exactly!" Rimmer grasped that fact. Lister sometimes had good ideas, after all.

"Heh..." That made sense. As long as there were no memories, this couldn't be reality. That's why there hadn't been any, last time either. He snuggled closer.

Rimmer patted him gently on the back. "Our reality is real."

Those words were starting to lose meaning. Lister ignored them, focusing instead on the warm, familiar-yet-strange body pressed close to him. It was strangely peaceful, now his panic had subsided. "This would have been nice in some other place, you know."

"Where? In my ear?" Rimmer snorted.

Lister put his arm around Rimmer, giggling a bit at the joke. "Nah, man. You know, being close like this. It's like that time when..." he froze.

Rimmer frowned at Lister's sudden tension. "What?"

"Like that time mum took us to the lake, and we got lost, and it was cold. And you held me close, because I was afraid of the dark." Lister felt cold, like his voice. Like later that night, when it had started raining, just before mum had found them. He sat up. His feet still felt wet, that special sogginess reserved for rain-soaked trainers, and he found he could no longer clearly tell exactly where he was.

Rimmer shivered as Lister's cock slid out, leaving him feeling oddly empty. The story brought images flitting into his mind. The smell of cool water. Crickets chirping. A warm body. He shook his head. "No. They're ghost-memories. Like when Cat disappeared in that bubble. We remembered a life without Cat." He shook his head harder, as if shaking it would dislodge these too-familiar images bubbling up in his mind.

Lister did not hear him. He was in a different place, a place of sounds and darkness and an odd kind of safety that he could not allow himself to think about, not anymore, because it was unStately - there was that word. The wrongness. UnStately. Deviant behavior. "And you said, 'Don't worry, Sebbie, it's not real. This isn't real.'"

"It's not," Rimmer barked. "It's _not_. That's the... ghost-memories adapting to match our reality."

Lister looked down, as if for the first time. His penis, deflating steadily, resting against the coarse linen of the bunk, just outside Billy's... "Fuck..." He felt sick. Billy. It was true.

"It's not." Rimmer took a lock of Lister's too-long hair and pushed it behind his ear. A thick, treacely wave of tenderness, as natural as breathing, flowed through him. "It'll all be fine, Sebbie..." He stopped abruptly. Not Sebbie. Listy. "No. Ghost memories," he said, sharply, feeling hysteria dig icy claws into the back of his neck.

That name, bringing with it feelings he knew he shouldn't have; it was too much. Lister choked, moving off that too-compliant body. "Oh, State help us, what have I done?" All these years of longing - and so very few slips, hardly any, until just before the game. And Rimmer had trusted him, but Lister had betrayed him; drugged him and forced him into something he had never asked to be a part of, even if he got to be a space hero. He could have died, and now he would end up worse than dead, and it was Sebastian's fault, because Lister had _made_ him!

Rimmer watched him go, wanting to grab him and pull him back. "State? No," he forced the right name through the swell of the damndable false memories, "Lister. No way."

Names. Too many and not enough. He couldn't tell them apart anymore. His head was filled with contradictions arguing amongst themselves, and he couldn't get a word in edgewise. "I... I don't..."

Rimmer sat up, in a panic. "Is this the body of an alcoholic smeggy homeless loser?" He looked down. Smeg. It was. Pale, too skinny, the beginnings of a soft pot belly starting to show under drooping pectorals. He shifted, feeling warm liquid start to spill out from between his legs. "No. Oh, no." Memories were flooding in, pushing out thoughts of Starbug and DJ-ships and heroics and Lister. Memories of his youth with his better brother, the one everyone looked up to, the brother he resented for his inherent better-ness. Memories of his lazy disinterest in academia, being thrown out and not caring. Memories of drunken binges. Of seedy bars, seeking out people who had that wavy hair or that brown skin or those full lips, sex on bug-infested mattresses that was _almost_ enough. "Oh, nonono. No way."

"Tell me Arn, go on." Lister's voice was dead. "Tell me there's a way to explain this. You were always good at explaining things. Aliens. Tell me it's aliens."

Rimmer's face fell in spectacular slow motion. He tore through his memories, trying to pull out something that wasn't smegging Billy. "No. I remember going camping with you, Lister. I've wanted you since we were both young. _You_ , Lister!" His voice was hysterical. He looked to his brother, but there was no answer in that calm face and those dead, dark eyes. "I would pretend it was you when..." Rimmer stopped. Rimmer and Lister had met when they were older. On some ship. He had known _Sebastian_ all his life. Rimmer had only just met Lister - hadn't he? Billy turned on his side. "I'm redneck brother-humping Billy Doyle," he moaned.

Sebastian watched him with a frighteningly unfamiliar feeling of helplessness. It was his fault, his fault entirely. He had entered the game in hope that it would influence William, but he hadn't counted on what it would do to him. It had weakened him, weakened the resolve he had spent most of his adult life building up. Even now his game persona screamed inside him, demanding to be let out, but Sebastian was in control again now. Sebastian had known all his life that he was weak. It seemed everything he wanted was forbidden or unStately, and since the State was good - they told you that in school, after all - it stood to reason that Sebastian was evil. Once he was old enough to understand how the world worked, he used to lie awake at nights, trying not to cry loudly enough for Billy to hear. He'd worried that the People's Thought Police would come to take him away for the things he wanted to do to girls; the stories and songs-without-tunes he'd make up in his mind and knew were evil; for how much he loved his brother. He would have broken down, would have ended up worse than Billy, had his mother not sat him down one day and explained that everyone had bad thoughts sometimes; that it wasn't having them that made you bad, it was keeping them under control that... that... "State help me," he muttered.

"And you're my mass-murdering obsession."

"Yes." Sebastian got off of the bunk and walked slowly to the side of the room. His walk was measured, steady, familiar. Safe. A good, Stately kind of safety. He latched onto it, drawing strength from it.

"I can still remember Rimmer..." Billy said, plaintively. "Ace. Lister. K... kr... something." The memories were so weak, in the face of his whole Doyle life sweeping over him. He rolled over, hiding his face in the bunk.

Sebastian sighed, looking at the wall. He knew where they were, from the simple fact that they were not at the Ministry of Alteration. Since they were not, there was only one other logical place for them to be - the State Hospital. This was clearly an observation room, but if they were being observed, why had they not... He turned, suddenly, hearing unmistakable slow hiss of gas. "Billy, cover yer mouth! Hurry!" He ran back to the bunk, picking up a piece of his discarded jumpsuit and tearing off a strip.

Billy looked up. Sebastian was blurry. "Whu?"

"Cover," Sebastian coughed, "your mouth!" He coughed again, placing the strip across his own face, fighting his instincts to help Billy first. He had to be conscious himself to do that, he argued, feeling the unreasonable anger of the Lister inside.

Billy shook his head. "Why?" He felt... empty. He had dreamed of doing that for so long, hadn't he? But he had seduced his brother, and Sebastian was going to hate him for that. Whatever the State had in mind, they were welcome to do it.

Sebastian swayed with the effects of the gas, fighting it even though he knew it was useless. Was that Lister again? Well, he was Lister, wasn't he? He felt control slipping again. "Gas..."

Billy gave into it with some gratitude. A little unconsciousness would feel pretty nice. "Good..." He lay back, feeling the room diminish into the distance. Sebastian's voice dwindled, as well.

"Take you 'way...." Lister muttered in tandem with Sebastian, struggling to stay upright. "Don't... won't let them hurt'cha..." He slumped to the ground.

"They can't." Billy's own voice felt like it was miles away. Blackness took him.

 

"Hello, Voter-Colonel."

The voice was obviously coming from somewhere, Lister thought. That much stood to reason. There had to be a direction for it to come from, otherwise it would be inside his head. And the very last thing he needed right now were voices in his head. It was crowded in there as it was, as real and fake memories jostled for position. He only wished he knew which of them were which.

"You really should get up, Voter-Colonel. The State does not tolerate idleness, as well you know."

"Industry is a virtue," Lister replied automatically, wondering where the phrase sprang from so easily. He then made the mistake of opening his eyes.

He was dressed now, fully dressed, in clothes much like the ones he remembered getting and putting on when they'd exited the game - _and every day of your adult life_ , part of his brain insisted. The cut and fabric was comfortable enough - tailor-made, in fact, but somehow this fact only served to make Lister feel more ill at ease. He was stretched out on a bed, if you could call a cold, plastic form-fitting slab a bed, and someone was watching him.

"Langley?" Lister didn't think he could be justified in saying he actually recognized the man. The name came from somewhere within; just a sound his brain associated with the visual stimuli now presented to it. There was no thought behind it. The stimuli in question stood at the foot of his bed, consisting of a blank, pale face with piercing light-blue eyes. There was a mustache, neatly kept within State-accepted parameters, and slicked-back black hair, matching the staring man's coat and tie. His shirt, however, was white - immaculately so.

"So you remember me this time? Excellent." Thin lips curled in a mockery of a smile. "The last time we spoke, you had difficulty bringing even your own name to mind."

Lister sat up, his whole body still feeling heavy with sleep. It was a very particular kind of heaviness, though, one that threatened to give way to soreness and pain later on. Langley, moving discreetly to stand by the door - which, Lister noted thankfully, was open - watched him wince and stretch with evident amusement. "Where's William," Lister mumbled.

"Ah." Well, the door _had_ been open. With that short comment, Langley quietly but firmly closed it, placing himself between Lister and it like some holy guardian.

Still somewhat groggy, Lister tried to focus on Langley's expressionless face. "What's that mean, 'ah'?"

Expressionlessness gave way to that quick lip-quirk once again. "It means, sir, that I suspected you would be asking about that. Not to worry, your..." there was a certain emphasis on the following word, which was not lost on Lister, " _brother_ is quite safe. And doing well, under the circumstances."

"Under the circumstances?"

"Why, yes." It was eerie, Lister thought, the way the man hardly seemed to move at all, not even his chest to breathe or his lips when he spoke. "It is no secret, Voter-Colonel, that he has been under observation for un-State-like behavior for quite some time now. Masturbation, both in public and private, abuse of Alcoholic Substances of the People, abuse of property of the State, lewd conduct, suspected homosexual activities... the list goes on. Given his excellent genetic profile and his faultless upbringing, we can but conclude that his condition has somehow been induced by an imbalance of the brain."

Part of Lister, the part that insisted that it wasn't Lister at all, prodded urgently that it knew what those words meant, and that they were important, very, very important, but Lister pushed it angrily away. "Where is he?"

A neatly trimmed eyebrow rose at this, as though its owner had expected another reaction. "He is safe, and will be well taken care of - that is all you need to know for the time being. Not to speak out of turn, Voter-Colonel, but you have had rather a harrowing experience. No concerns you have could be so pressing that they cannot wait until you have had a chance to collect yourself, as it were."

There was a suggestion, both in the words and the tone of his voice, that Lister had better accept these terms without protestation. Well, Lister would show him some smegging protestation! He gripped the sides of the bed, ready to leap down from it and lunge at the scrawny, rat-like man, but found he could not move. It was not so much a weakness in his limbs as it was a reluctance of his brain to relay the impulses that he wanted to his muscles. It was, in short, as though neither his body nor his brain was used to that sort of reaction or maneuver. "Smeg," he muttered, his knuckles whitening. Gripping the bed seemed to be all he was capable of, so he gripped it hard enough to hurt. It or him - it didn't really matter as long as there was pain somewhere in the room.

There came a polite cough from Langley's direction. "Voter-Colonel. You are clearly still somewhat confused. The doctors assure me this is quite normal. Perhaps you would like to talk with them again? We had the finest specialists in the State flown in for your convenience."

My convenience, Lister thought. And would these so-called specialists tell him where the smegging sodding smegging hell William _no, Rimmer; Rimmer!_ was? Would they tell him what the goited fuck was going on? He sat, gripping the plastic, looking at nothing in particular, and felt a familiar-yet-strange sense of calm and stability overcome him. And at once, he straightened, letting go of the much-abused bed and flexing his throbbing fingers. He turned, looking Langley straight in those cold, unblinking eyes.

"Send them in," Sebastian said.


	2. Chapter 2

Someone who was not him had opened his front door.

Shaking off, in a microsecond, the daze he had been in since he left the hospital, Lister felt Sebastian take over. He swung the door open gently, gun at the ready - Lister hadn't even noticed it coming out of his pocket. The dull lights in the living room were on, and there was a faint smell of something in the air. It meant very little to Lister, but something in Sebastian stirred, loosening his grip on the gun just a fraction. But there was a figure sitting on his couch, and the gun was solidly in his hand again, pointing at whoever it was. Lister could not see clearly in the dim lighting, and squinted towards the slim outline as the door slammed shut behind him, locking automatically.

"Sebastian!" the figure said in a too-familiar, chirpy, friendly voice.

Straight, dark hair. High cheekbones. Bright eyes, small, lithe frame. That curious, unplacable accent, like Scottish dipped in a bath of Irish and given some fancy Oxbridge polishing with a cloth that was slightly Northern. Lister's jaw dropped, but the gun stayed firmly in Sebastian's grip, trained on - no, not possible. Not that pinball smile that made his knees weak, and his heart beat four times faster. Not here.

"Oh, put that away, Sebastian," she said, smiling in that heart-wrenching manner she had. "It's just me."

Sebastian recognized her too, but Lister was hardly in a position to care about that. He felt like someone who had crossed the desert to find an oasis he hoped was not a mirage. "Kris?" He slowly lowered his gun.

"Yes! You remember me." She stood, not quite reaching the top of his chest. Lister stared, open-mouthed, fumbling to put his gun away on the side table as she stepped closer, smiling. "I feel like I haven't seen you in _ages_ ," she breathed.

"What are you doing here?" Lister wasn't entirely sure what he meant by that question, but he desperately, desperately needed to know the answer.

"I heard about the coma from Jake," she replied, her eyes sad. "Then he said you were out of it - and that you'd like to see me." Sebastian's eyes did not move. "So here I am," she finished with another flash of that pinball smile.

"Kris..." Did it matter? This was _Kris_ , his Kris; not some dimensional alternate with the wrong clothes and the wrong voice and the wrong face. Here, in this place, but with her own name. This had to mean something; had to be some sort of clue, finally, to this smegging fecked-up puzzle.

"Sebbie. Come. Sit down." She held out her hand.

But that was not Lister's name. Deep within in him, Lister found a memory of another Kris, someone Sebastian had known and - yes - loved. Loved like Lister had loved his Kris. But then... "You got married." She nodded, and he looked at her outstretched left hand. It had no ring on it, but Lister wasn't looking at that. He stared, instead, at the pale pinkish skin and the nails worn sensibly short, which for his Kris was to help with typing. Very, very slowly, with the speed of icebergs or continents, Lister reached out and took it, holding it tightly when they finally touched.

"But my husband sent me to you. He thought you needed me more." Her expression became blank.

"Need," Lister mumbled. What a hopelessly inaccurate word. He looked up at her face, reaching out with one hand to very gently trace her features.

"I missed you, you know. I know how important your job is, but..." she trailed off with a shrug. "Well, you can't really have both, I know."

But he could. He could take this woman, this miracle of a long-dead love resurrected, and have her and Sebastian's old lover both. Somewhere between sad and happy, he whispered, "I missed you too." A common longing in both his selves; he'd felt that before, hadn't he?

Kochanski pulled him towards the couch. "Tell me a little about it."

He followed, dumbly, as she sat, pulling him down. He shed his coat, tossing it on the chair, then took both of her hands in his. Smiles alternated with frowns. "Why are you here?" he asked, finally.

"To see you." She reached up with one hand to stroke his hair. Sebastian caught the hand on the way up.

"What are you doing?" There had been too many people touching him like that in too short a space of time, and it had all gone to utter smeg, hadn't it?

Kochanski sighed. Her too-familiar face put on a too-familiar expression of strained patience. "Sebastian, you used to love me, you know."

He hadn't meant it like that. "I... I didn't..." She frowned, and he quickly stumbled on. It was going wrong, this too. Everything crumbling away in his hands until there was nothing left. "I loved you. Oh, Kris, you don't know... Don't know how much!" He squeezed the hand he was holding. Dangerous, dwelling on the past. Dangerous to let himself feel anything at all, Sebastian thought, but Lister couldn't _not_. She seemed to melt a little, beaming with pleasure, and bent down to kiss the hand she was holding. Her lips still on it, she looked up, a more mischievous smile on her face. Lister watched, confusion and desire pounding with equal violence in his head. "Oh hell, don't _do_ this to me," he mumbled.

Kochanski's smile faded a little. "Don't you want this?" she asked, her voice sultry.

Enough. Lister leaned towards her like a building on the verge of collapsing. Her mouth opened slightly, and he gravitated towards it, his own lips trying to form words, lingering just beyond the reach of hers. She watched, stroking his hand gently, her lips parted and head tilted in invitation. _Kristine_. Such amazing power in such a small woman; power to make his soul melt and pool into his groin - oh smeg, he was aching for her. He longed to have her hands and lips on him, the way she would lick her way to his groin so very slowly that he nearly came from watching it all; the way her short, stubby tongue would push against his in the dark, tight space of his bunk on those long, carefree nights back on Red Dwarf before she... before they all... With a sudden yelp, Lister dropped her hand, scuttling away, cushions flying to the floor, bouncing off his flailing legs. "NO!" he yelled.

Kochanksi jumped. "Sebbie!"

Lister backed up against the arm of the couch, panting, the madness in his mind spilling out into his eyes. "I can't take any more of this! I can't! I _can't_!"

"Sebastian..." Kochanski said, her sweet face and her charming voice far too kind, far too gentle - and worried. _But she was dead_ , Lister's mind screamed, _she was dead!_ "What's wrong?"

Breathing heavily, Lister leaned a little towards her again, eager in the worst sort of way, no matter how you put it. It was all a nightmare. A horrible nightmare. "They took Billy, Kris!"

Kochanski sighed. "Oh, Sebbie, I'm so sorry. I know you talked about how you might have to..."

"They took him!" Lister interrupted. "And he's not Rimmer, and I'm not Lister! But I _know_ I am, honestly, I do! I remember everything!"

Kochanski's brow furrowed. "Sweetheart, what are you talking about?"

"I remember _you_ , Kris! I remember us. That was real, wasn't it?" Lister babbled, panic rising. Kris had been his life, and then his reason to go on living when no other human beings were, for so long. If she was back... but it wasn't really her, was it? What did it all mean?

"Of course it was. What's wrong?"

She was there, whoever she was, and right now that was all Lister needed. Choking, he drew her into a hug. She wrapped her arms around him, holding him tightly, patting his back soothingly. "I missed you so much," he sighed.

"Darling, I missed you, too."

"I didn't know what to do!"

Kochanski laughed a little laugh. "That's a first!"

Her hair felt soft against his lips, soft and familiar. "You smell the same." He bent down and kissed her neck.

Kochanski threw back her head and smiled. "You smell like you always did. Clean. Like the woods. And like gun oil." Lister barked a short laugh. "I've never seen woods, but you told me all about them," she continued, as he stroked her hair, his other hand coming up to stroke her cheek.

"I did?" Lister asked. He would have given anything for this moment to last, to be the start of something good and sane and safe, but he was beyond the point of hoping. Enough, for now, to breathe in her scent; the perfume that Sebastian had bought her long ago, the shampoo Lister recognized. To just pretend, for a moment, that it was all right.

"You did," she replied, as his lips traced up her neck. "About you and Billy playing in them when you were young." She stroked his cheek gently with one hand.

"Yeah..." Lister replied, as though through a fog. He didn't want to hear about Billy now. He kissed her cheek, softly, then her lips as she moved her head to meet him. She smiled into the kiss, and he exhaled in a whimper. "Wrong..." he mumbled, haltingly.

"No, it's all right," she said, her voice sweet and calm. "It's just fine, Sebbie."

Oh, how he wanted to believe her. It would be easy, as easy as giving into Sebastian's control and forgetting himself. Forgetting Rimmer. Forgetting everything. But he couldn't. Having the woman of your dreams with you was no help if you were in hell. "Nothing is all right."

"Oh, sweetheart," she sighed.

They've taken Billy," he said, kissing her, because kissing her was easy. "They'll change him; worse than..." another kiss, so easy to lose himself in it, the temptation rising with each touch, each caress, "worse than killing him. Worse..."

She kissed him back with desire. "You knew you'd have to. He gave you no choice. You gave him every chance a brother could."

Lister shook his head, words tumbling out irrationally. "No. I had the gun, but I couldn't do it. Gave him a choice, but couldn't do what _he_ wanted..." Easier to kiss this woman, this sanctuary, this long-lost dream, and lose himself in her. Kochanski sighed and kissed him with parted lips, tickling his lips with her tongue. Yes, this was what needed to happen now, all other concerns aside. Him, this woman, nothing else. Lister leaned her backwards tenderly, trying to remember her body. Lister did; every curve and every freckle on her cheek, but Sebastian was silent. Lister felt his hand start to shiver as he stroked down Kris's side, brushing her breast. She moaned with delight at that, but it didn't feel right, even when he drowned out Sebastian's cries of indecency. She was from another place, another time; she did not belong here, and Lister did not know what to do anymore. Lost and scared somewhere in the back of his own convoluted mind, he cried, "Kris!"

"Yes..." she breathed, kissing him, unbuttoning the two top buttons of his shirt to slide her hands in, stroking his chest with her fingertips. On auto-pilot now, Lister kept caressing her, settling between her legs, sliding his hands under her blouse. He craved flesh, bare flesh against his palms, a pink nipple in his teeth, the taste of skin on his tongue. One hand stroked down her side again, towards her thigh. She seemed to enjoy that, moaning, deepening the kiss, stroking his tongue with her own. She popped the buttons on his vest, then his shirt, pushing both off of him to stroke more of his chest. Lister whimpered desperately, helping her get his shirt off, then nearly tore her blouse off. Skin. He had to get at skin, had to feel and taste something solid. His cock hurt from the handling it had gotten recently, springing to attention with an urgency that made him clench his teeth and grab Kris harder. She was naked now to the waist, and Lister stopped for a moment, looking down. A pinball smile gleamed back at him as she whispered huskily, "Let's take this up to your bed, sweetheart." Her hand was on his cheek, so soft, so tiny.

He looked from her chest to her face and back again. Narrow waist, soft belly, heaving _breasts_ , the face of a ghost. He panted, pushed hard against her groin, pressing against her without thinking. He had gone too long without release and was near tears from it, but he could not go further; all he could do was stare.

"Darling?" Kochanski asked, her smile slipping.

"Hell." All Lister felt now was disgust. Disgust at what he could and couldn't do, at the sickly wave of _wrongness_ radiating from Sebastian. Looking away, he pushed himself off of her, got to his feet and staggered away.

"Sebbie!" Kochanski said more sharply, frowning, pushing herself upright.

"Sorry." Arn didn't like it when he apologized during sex. But he had never slept with Kris, even though he had, so many times in so short a while; she understood him. Understood his body, made him want to last longer just to keep it going on and on and on, but now they would take her away, just like Billy, and it was his fault. His fault. "Oh smeg... I'm sorry."

"What's wrong." Her dark tone made it more of a statement than a question, and he did not answer, just kept leaning against the wall in sullen silence. She snapped, "You could do that with _Billy_ , Jake said!"

Lister's shoulders started to shake. He pressed his head against the wall and hugged himself, wishing the room and everything in it would just disappear.

Kochanski stood, pulling her blouse closed and refastening it. "What _happened_ to you, Sebastian?" she asked. Her voice shook between anger and frustration.

Nothing, Lister wanted to reply. Everything. The game. _Arn_. But he just stood there, shaking, his head sliding down the wall a little. He turned slightly, to where he could just about see Kris out of the corner of his eye.

"You're on your way to Rehabilitation, yourself, at this rate," she sighed. Her dark hair, just a little ruffled, shook and danced around her face in little motions that as always made him want to pull her close and bury his face in it. Even now, he still did.

He looked at her. "I loved you. So much," he choked. He still did. That was the worst of it.

She started to tear up. "I loved the Sebastian you were," she said, her voice quavering. "I don't see much of him left." She scrubbed at her eyes with the back of her hand.

Perhaps it was hearing that name one time to many from those beautiful lips, but something in Lister snapped. He turned towards her, his eyes as wild as his mind, completely lost to anger at this whole fecking sodding scenario. "I'm NOT SEBASTIAN! I can't be!" It made too much sense. Like Billy said.

Kochanski shook her head, wiping her eyes more ferociously. She walked abruptly to the front door. Lister turned and followed her, skulking. "Please let me out," she said, her voice shaking.

"Hell, Kris... What is this?" He took her by the shoulders, nearly shaking her. "What _is_ this? Tell me!" She was the clue, he knew she was the clue. Something about her was different!

She tried to pull away from him. "They asked me to help you. But if you don't want my help - let me go home."

"Who? Who asked you?"

"Jake. He requisitioned me from my husband."

She had gotten married. Lister froze. He'd signed the papers himself; the voluntary release from employment due to impending marriage form when she left the department, the witness protocol when she had asked him to - they had brought it over by courier, because it was not seemly for a man to see another man take possession of his wife. The signature was probably what had helped Timothy Kochanski get a job within the Ministry of Art Prevention, though of course the State demanded that an individual get by on his own merit. His grip softened, and he hung his head as Kochanski stepped back.

"Please let me out." Her voice quavered. "I want to go home."

Yes, she was a clue all right. Someone named Kristine Kochanski in both worlds, a girl Sebastian had loved and lost. Perverted clue and a half, wasn't it? Except he hadn't wanted to see it for what it was. Sebastian suddenly took hold of himself, shaking Lister off like a dirty work suit. It was so obvious he wanted to laugh. He had always wanted her, and when he entered the game, he just couldn't resist adding a little something for himself. He had the influence, as Voter-Colonel. Duane would have had the programming skills; it would have been an easy thing to re-write the code for Lister's love-interest to fit his own desire, and insist it was added. No questions would be asked, and he could have indulged himself safely. His back straightened with a series of satisfied pops, his movements stiffening at once to become more efficient, businesslike. But he hadn't been satisfied with that, had he? That was the tragedy of it all. It had not been Billy as Rimmer who had instigated their disgusting little t  
e-à-têtes in that damned-to-infinity simulation; it had been Sebastian, as Lister. Every single deviated time. Rimmer had resisted, but Lister had pressed on, had seduced him, time and time again. Sebastian had seduced his brother. And now Billy was paying the price. He gathered himself, looking down at Kris. "I'll send someone to escort you. You won't be harmed or bothered further. Can you trust me enough to believe that?"

"Jake is waiting to take me home," she replied. "I'll be fine."

"Jake," Sebastian replied, his voice flat. Yes, that would be like him. Always looking out for him, Jake was.

"Yes. He drove me here." She turned to the door.

"All right then." Sebastian put all his years of experience as Voter-Colonel into his next words. "Forget this, Kris."

"I could never forget Sebastian," she said, quietly. "But I'll do as I'm told."

Sebastian nodded. "Be as happy as you can."

"I've been doing that," she said, with some acid.

"Yer a good citizen." A lie. A good citizen would have resisted, remained passive or resisted any advances from him. She could have been returned to her husband then, her honor still untarnished. As it was, there was nothing even Sebastian's influence could do to help her, even if he wanted to. But that was the way of the world; you got what you deserved. Sebastian had no sympathy for the likes of her.

The ghost of a humorless smile flitted over Kochanski's face. "Never as good as you."

Sebastian's face twitched. "No one is." He motioned with his head for her to go on. She stepped to the door, and it opened; Jake was barely visible at the end of the walk. She walked towards him as Sebastian stood, rigid. He closed the door behind her, neatly, and stepped into the living-room. With steady, unshaking hands, he began to put his clothes back on neatly.

 

Kochanski trotted down the walkway rapidly, looking straight ahead. Jake walked at her side, trying to read her face. She had only been in with the Voter-Colonel for a short time. Surely they couldn't have concluded things so quickly? But why would they not have? She volunteered no information, striding to the car as quickly as her short legs would carry her, opening the door, and sitting down with a graceless thud. Her breath whistled out with a sigh as she sat.

Jake closed the door, then walked to the driver's side and got in. He locked the doors and started the car, driving very slowly, waiting for Kochanski to speak. Kochanski looked straight ahead. After a few minutes, however, her face fell. "Jake," she said, her voice small. "What happened to him?"

"His extended time in the Game - and in the Game-influenced coma - seems to have affected him." Jake looked at her out of the corner of his eye. "I assume you were not... successful?"

She leaned her head against the window, and tears started to leak out of her eyes, an emotional display from which cyborgs were exempt, to Jake's relief. "I don't know what happened, Jake," she sniffled. "He always used to say he loved me, but then there was always his duty to the State, so we never..." she trailed off, shaking her head. Jake nodded. He was unsurprised; the Voter-Colonel was an exemplary Citizen. "But then he can go and do that with his own _brother_!" She banged her fist against the window and heaved a great sigh. "I'm tired. I just want to go home."

Jake nodded, his face impassive. This was a significant complication, indeed. It was a pity that she would have to be Rehabilitated without fulfilling her objective, but she had used female sexuality to tempt, and whether that was successful or not, it was grounds for summary Rehabilitation. Meanwhile, the Voter-Colonel still had his... problem. It would go away once his pervert of a brother was Rehabilitated, but Jake knew that the paperwork for Rehabilitation could drag on. Well, he could see what state it was in when he dropped Kochanski off; perhaps he could expedite it. He had favors he could call in.

"Jake," Kochanski said, interrupting his reverie with a worried voice, "I said I wanted to go _home_."

"We have to make a stop along the way, ma'am," he told her.

"Where?" she asked, her eyes wild.

"I can't tell you."

She looked out the window, squinting to find clues in the darkness that drifted by outside of the windows. "Jake... it looks like you're taking me to the State Hospital." Her head whipped around. "I'm not sick!"

"You will not be once this is done, ma'am," he replied, resolutely businesslike. She started to fumble with the safety belt, and he grabbed her wrist. "Please don't struggle. You'll only make it worse. I already filed the paperwork, so they're expecting us. The good news is, you score so well on the aptitude tests that they'll probably cyborg you, rather than performing initiative removal therapy." It almost wasn't fair. Offenders against the State being given cybernetic upgrades that ordinary citizens had to pay dearly for? Still, it did make sense. The cybernetic implants could easily be tweaked to repress unCitizenly memories and drives. The cyborg Rehabilitants were much more useful than the products of initiative removal therapy.

"You already filed the paperwork." Jake was grateful for his mechanically-enhanced strength, as she fought with a ferocity out of proportion to her small frame. "You bastard!"

"My parents were married, ma'am."

She tried to run when he stopped the car; she struggled and fought as he took her down the corridor. A tired-looking night clerk gave her an injection of sedative and slung her over his shoulder. "Thank you for turning her in, Citizen. We've entered your name in the drawing."

"Just doing my duty, Citizen!" Jake responded, cheerfully. He waved as the clerk carried her down the corridor to the holding wards.

Once he was out of sight, Jake dropped his pretense of cheerfulness. He _had_ to see how Billy's rehabilitation was proceeding. He walked quietly over to the door leading to the administrative areas, and picked the lock with one of Kochanski's hairpins that he had nicked when he took her over to the Voter-Colonel's home. He switched to low-light visual mode and walked to the office of the Administrative Head Of Rehabilitation. He picked that lock, as well. The records of Rehabilitation were extensive; the office lead to a room full of banks upon banks of filing cabinets. Jake walked through them to the Doyle section.

The records were arranged alphabetically by the name of the Citizen who turned in the Rehabilitee. As William's confession stated that his brother had been an unwilling participant, he was filed under Sebastian's name. After some hunting - Sebastian's file held thousands of names - Jake found William's file. He flipped through it, and was pleasantly surprised. Someone had already expedited the paperwork; William's file was complete, signed in triplicate, and stamped. He was set to be Rehabilitated once business hours began.

Satisfied, Jake replaced the file. As he stepped back, however, another name in Sebastian's file caught his eye, and he paused. No, it couldn't be. It was a coincidence. Jake pulled out the file marked Bullet, Jake - just to assuage his curiosity, to find out what poor clod with the same name as him had done. Something rang in the back of his mind, a near-audible screech of protest, but he ignored it, opening the file and reading.

The poor clod was him.

He read through the file. He read the statement of the Citizen who turned him in, one Voter-Colonel Sebastian Doyle. He read the details of his unCitizenly behavior, and noted the reference to the aptitude tests that allowed him to receive cyborg treatment. He read the statements of which drives and memories the cyborg treatment had repressed, sequestered away in his mind, not affecting his perfect Citizenliness. He replaced the file in its proper space, walked out to the desk in the office, sat down, and rested his hands on the desk.

The file had stimulated the retrieval of memories, ones that had long been locked away. He could feel nanorelays snapping and nanobreakers fizzing as those memories punched through mechanical blocks, running through his mind in fits and spurts. He remembered his suit. A black silk suit with a sober black tie. He remembered a silver tea service. The Voter-Colonel, looking up with a grateful smile as he took a cup of tea off of the tray. _Thank you, Jake._ Laying out clothes, fine suits in sober colors, a modest tie asserted with a simple pin of gold. The softness of a towel in his hands. The towel lying on wet brown skin. A droplet clinging to an earlobe, about to fall; a tongue - his - reaching out to capture it; the taste of skin, hair, neck; hands pushing at him, a shocked voice...

Jake shivered. Oh, _hell_.


	3. Chapter 3

The cyborgs set Billy down gently on a cot in a small cell, closing the door behind them. Billy sat on the cot in the same position they had left him, his arms aching. He felt utterly passive. Anything he did was likely to only draw attention to himself, and attention when you were in line to be Rehabilitated was never a good idea. He looked at his hands and wondered if he would really miss having a brain. It didn't seem like his was much good. Maybe it would be an improvement. All it offered him was self-awareness, and his wasn't a self it was pleasing to be aware of.

The door opened as soundlessly as the soft footsteps that must have preceded the opening, but something - a breath of air, a feeling of presence - nonetheless made Billy look up and see his half-brother. If he was there to scold, Billy was not in the mood for it. He looked right back down at his hands.

Sebastian had woken up some hours before Lister that morning, and had taken advantage of that time to do the kind of physical maintenance he knew his stubborn game-personality would have resisted. He had showered, knowing full well his counterpart would have had trouble caring properly for his hair, even with Sebastian's memories, much as Sebastian would not have known how to care for Lister's. He had flossed carefully after brushing his teeth, the memory of Lister's poor dental hygiene enough to nearly make his gums bleed from increased effort. Once all State-recommended body-grooming standards had been met, he had even had time for a few push-ups before Lister had crashed into his skull with an urgent demand for cigarettes, painkillers and seeing the person he stubbornly insisted was Rimmer _right now_.

Though Lister kept himself firmly in the driver's seat of his mind, he had no trouble letting Sebastian take over from time to time, as long as the stuck-up git didn't get any foolish ideas about being real. He couldn't seem to completely eject him, no matter how hard he tried; the self that comprised those memories, thoughts and feelings seemed etched permanently into his brain. At least the Voter-Colonel's experience allowed Lister to find the State Hospital and bullshit his way in there with some degree of believability. Though actually, gaining access to the compound had proved surprisingly easy; as soon as Lister - or rather Sebastian - waved his ID-card, doors opened and faces stiffened into fake, plastic grins. The actual card seemed to be optional; Sebastian's face was apparently as well  
known here as that of Sabrina Mulholland Jjones in what Lister liked to think of as 'his' world. Not really looking at Billy, he strode over to the small, bare interview table that stood in the middle of the room. He grabbed the chair that faced Billy's bed and sat down, marveling at how easy it was to exude confidence. Was it the clothes? The way his face automatically seemed to drain of all emotion?

Billy did not look up. He had seen that blank expression on Sebastian's face when the man walked in, and it was an expression he hated. It spoke of work, of Alteration and _better than Billy_. Game-memories nagged at Billy's mind, sending images of quick action, of kerfuffles, of pulling out the gun that Sebastian would likely have in order to run out of the hospital with at least one gun blazing. Silliness. Billy sat on the cot pointedly and let Sebastian be better off in the center of the room.

"Bill." Billy grunted. Well, he had never liked that nickname, Sebastian remembered. Lister, frustrated that the hurt welling up inside him did not reach his face, spoke more firmly. "William."

"What, _Sebastian_?" Billy asked. His voice had the petulant whine it usually had when Sebastian was lecturing him about something he had done wrong. Bloody hell, had he ever done something wrong.

Granted, it did not look good, but the question needed to be asked. Using Sebastian's firmly controlled, urging voice, Lister did so. "That's who you feel you are? Completely?"

Billy sighed and shifted, looking at his own jiggling legs. He _really_ did not want a lecture. What did Sebastian hope to gain? Billy was well set on his way to Rehabilitation. "What do you want?"

Ah well. There hadn't been much hope, had there? Nevertheless, Lister suddenly felt very tired indeed. He leaned forward to let his elbows rest on his thighs, and rested his head in his hands for moment. Collect yourself, Sebastian's thoughts commanded, and because it was easier to obey than to resist, Lister looked up, his face again void of expression. "How are they treating you?"

Billy shrugged. "Like a citizen, I guess." If Sebastian was asking, it was because he wasn't planning on getting Billy out of this, and if he wasn't, Billy's comfort was not something to worry about. It must be the introduction to a particularly intense lecture. For what reason, Billy had no idea, but Billy had never known just what it was that made Sebastian better, had he? Maybe there was something in there about penance, about going out with a clean conscience. Billy looked up at Sebastian, resting his chin on his hand and tapping his nails on his lips. Just let Sebastian _try_ to make him feel bad about his life. Well, worse than he did already.

It would be hard to find anyone less citizen-like than William Doyle. Lister smiled a sad, grim smile. If they were making him feel like one, it was probably because they expected him to become a good one very soon. "Nah. That comes later. I've met people who feel entirely like citizens." He twitched slightly at the images emerging mercilessly from Sebastian's remembrances. Citizens, yes. People? Perhaps not.

"And I don't feel entirely like one," Billy muttered. He could probably anticipate each line of the lecture. He shifted as Sebastian nodded.

Lister sighed and stood. He fumbled in his pocket as he moved towards the bunk, a little annoyed at having Sebastian to thank for the opportunity the object his fingers now skirted gave him.

Billy shifted away from Sebastian, sucking on his own nails, another possible reason for Sebastian's visit suddenly springing to mind. He watched Sebastian's fumbling fingers warily. It would be _so_ Sebastian to decide it would be less of a blight on the Doyle name to have a dead Billy than a Rehabilitated Billy, and Billy wanted to retain his right to disagree.

Arriving next to Billy, Lister hunkered down and brought forth a small, black device, about the size of a fingernail. Tiny blinking lights shone in red and green along the edges, impossibly small. He held it up in front of Billy, who edged away. "See this?"

Billy winced as Sebastian turned it in his hands, the feeling that he was right about his newest thought nagging at him. It seemed that the smallest things Sebastian used at Alteration were the worst. He had this little pack of micro-bots that could enter the bloodstream and stop the heart at the press of a remote-controlled button; damn fine for ensuring good conduct, those were. "What?"

"Not many people have one. I do, a couple of department heads do, but I should warn you..." Lister walked it over his fingers, deftly. "It is very un-Stately to possess one. Yet we do." He frowned. This was a paradox even Sebastian had worried about quite often. Oh, there were many reasons given for their existence; the need to reward the exemplary behavior all State officials must necessarily exhibit; the argument that while ordinary Citizens must be kept under surveillance for their own protection, individuals of higher standing and moral fiber did not need such crutches, to name but two. Nothing have ever seemed entirely right to Sebastian, however. He had never used his... before now.

Billy raised his eyebrows at that finger-walking. He had never seen Sebastian do anything like _that_ before. "What is it? The world's smallest sexual aid?"

"I don't get this place, you know. Seems the people at the top of the system are the ones who break it the most." _Not break,_ Sebastian insisted, to Lister's dark amusement, _it is a reward. A..._ the voice stilled. "Ah well."

"I've done my best," Billy muttered. Even at _that_ , Sebastian was better than he was.

"I know you have," Lister said, quietly. Remembering Billy's actions through Sebastian's memories, he really had nothing but respect for the man. He just wished the bastard would let go of his grip on Rimmer. He found the small, fingernail-tip-sized depression on the side of the device and pressed it, putting it back in his pocket.

Billy closed his eyes with a sharp intake of breath, expecting - well, just about anything hideous.

"Now we can talk."

Billy cracked one eye open. He patted himself over arms, chest, thighs, and crotch, noting that all seemed to be present and functioning. "What?"

"It's all right; I've disabled all the surveillance systems in this room for about half an hour's time." Lister's frown deepened as Sebastian shone through, for a moment, adding grimly, "A little privilege of the Voter-Colonel."

Billy stared down at his jiggling legs again. It must be one doozy of a lecture that Sebastian had planned. "Great. We can swap secret pie recopies," he muttered.

"You really feel like Billy? Through and through?" Inside his head Sebastian laughed, dismissing this as a waste of time, but Lister kindly told him to mind his own smegging business. The mental sparring-match made Lister restless. He shuffled his feet, looking intently at Billy, trying to concentrate.

"You're the one who felt me through and through. What do _you_ think?" Billy asked, sweetly. Well, he owed the perfect Citizen a little dig - wherever he could get one. He looked up. He had noticed the oddities in Sebastian's behavior, and the faint expression on Sebastian's normally perfectly expressionless face startled him. Did the man _really_ think he was still in that damn Game?

A reminder Lister very much did not need at this moment, desperately trying as he was to think clearly. Now he sucked his lower lip in, seeing wild brown-green eyes, feeling frizzy white hair and too-rough skin. Smeg it all, the mere memory was making him _hard_. Fuck, Dave, you horny bastard, he thought, his eyes moistening. Arn is gonna get his brain scrambled, and yer thinking about screwing him? He couldn't help it, though; it wasn't just him. Other thoughts mixed with his own, of long afternoons spent sitting in cold baths, pinching his arms and gritting his teeth until they hurt, trying to make the feelings _stop_. And they had eventually, hadn't they? Until that deviant, sodding Game had... Lister shook it off.

Billy stood. "What? I'm supposed to be some smegging Space Hero in a shiny flightsuit?" The Game-memories prodded at Billy, insisting that women loved that suit, but Billy pushed those memories aside again with irritation. What did he care for women, anyway? Sebastian sat as Billy walked away from the cot. "I  
tried to do pushups this morning." He had been tired, and the pseudo-habits he had built up in the coma had taken over him, briefly. "I think I sprained my wrist. All I feel like is a drink and a good fuck. That's Billy, yeah?"

"That's what I feel like most of the time," Lister shrugged, to Sebastian's internal protestations.

"You do a damn good job of hiding it. You're so _good_ at your work. Never take women. Or men. Mum was so proud." Well, he hadn't before. Mum would have had a coronary at the idea of Sebastian falling from his perfect Citizenliness at the hands - and other bits - of Billy.

Lister shook his head, moving his hands to his temples. "I'm not sure who I _am_!" He was holding Sebastian back for now, but it was starting to dawn on Lister with some trepidation that the other personality was by far the stronger one. Lister might have guts and a generous helping of righteous anger and stamina, but they were no match for Sebastian's cold, unrelenting _control_. It was born of years of self-deprivation, bitterness and grief, and it would not back down. He would wait Lister out, and when the space-bum was too exhausted, the Voter-Colonel would strike.

"They told me all of the Rimmer and Lister business is Game memories."

_Give in_ , Sebastian whispered, as Lister turned his pleading eyes toward Billy. "But it can't be, can it?"

"They probably told you that you're just in denial because you don't want to believe you had sex with your brother. Me?" Billy barked a laugh. "I'm just a sick evil twat." He put his hands on his hips, looking down. The Game had been just a convenience for him, after all - a way to get what he had wanted since before he even went in. It all made perfect sense - which was the only thing perfect about Billy Doyle.

A jolt of caring concern hit Lister, stemming not entirely from himself. There were layers now, he found, of caring, making his love for this man in front him almost unbearably strong. Unbearable, for a host of reasons. "I don't think you are evil. And we're none of us sick. If you are, then I would be too, wouldn't I?"

Now _that_ was rich. "I've wanted to screw you since I was old enough to have an erection, and that's not sick?" Billy asked, flatly, as if laying out someone else's case study. He paced as he felt Sebastian's eyes on him.

"I wanted you, too," Sebastian said, quietly. Lister let him.

Billy stopped pacing. "Perfect Sebbie Doyle? No way." He had practically worshipped the man for his perfection - and resented him for it, powerfully, at the same time. If Sebastian weren't perfect, his world was as meaningless as - well, as the Game memories.

Lister nodded, earnestly. "Perfect..." he hesitated, "him. Me. Whatever."

Billy snorted. "You're such a good Citizen - you'd turn _yourself_ in if you suspected." He backed away warily as Sebastian suddenly stood and walked towards him.

"Being a citizen isn't about bein' perfect. It's about pretendin' you are. I'm just a good actor."

"It's about all of you who are so good pretending _making_ the rest of us perfect," Billy said, plaintively. "The lazy layabout pervert drunkards. By whatever means necessary."

Lister looked at Sebastian's well-polished shoes. "Smegged-up, ain't it?" Sebastian would never have risen to the rank that he had if he _had_ been a perfect citizen. It was the fact that he was, by nature, such an imperfect one that had made him work like a man possessed to keep what he saw as his dark side in check. Lister saw the irony, and couldn't help but smile a little.

Billy's mind raced. This wasn't Sebastian. The man did not _pretend_ to be a good Citizen or _act_ perfect. He just was; it was not in his nature to be any other way. Suddenly, the facts fell into a pleasing arrangement. One that settled his beliefs about Sebastian back into pleasing, relieving harmony. He snapped his fingers and pointed at Sebastian. "A-haaaaa... I get it."

"What?" The gesture was Rimmer-like, but the knowing, world-weary look in his eyes was not.

"This," Billy waved his arms around, "is your way of getting to me. Rehabilitating. They always like it better when the family's involved."

With a noisy sigh, Lister turned and started pacing. Why had he come here? He had never been able to reason with Rimmer when they had both been themselves; what had made him think he would do better in this smegged-up madhouse scenario?

"I didn't know they'd _quite_ stoop to incest, but you _are_ a devoted citizen!"

This back was too straight, the clothes constricting and loose in the wrong places. Lister sneered at them, breaking into his own familiar walk in a fit of frustrated anger. He swung his arms, feeling seams strain against the - to them - novel movements, wishing they would tear and show some goited sign of weakness. "That's _not_ what this is!"

"That's what you'd say if it was, though!" Billy's voice quavered in a pathetic I'm-on-to-you manner.

"I know!" Wanting to grab him, shake them both until everything started making sense again, Lister made a desperate, sudden turn back towards... Smeg, it was so easy to think of him as Billy! Sebastian wanted him to, and it seemed even Rimmer wanted him too, and all Lister had to keep what he thought was himself together was his own fragile ego. "Smegging hell, I don't even know what to call you! I don't know..." He faltered, grabbed the nearest chair, and sat down limply in it.

Billy shook his head. "I know this is reality. It makes too much sense." It was almost a relief, to fall back into the role of a pathetic loser. It felt so natural, so _right_.

"I don't know..." It was all confusion. He needed to breathe, just for a moment. Just that.

Billy waved his hand in front of Sebastian's face. "The last human alive and his dead hologrammatic space-hero companion? He-llo?" The memories of being a space hero were quite fun, yes, but they had nothing to do with _him_.

Lister looked up, or hoped he did, his body still hunched. Billy, looking oh-so-very Billy, had his hands on his hips and his head slightly cocked. But how would he know that so well if he wasn't Sebastian? "I don't know what makes sense anymore."

"Well. I'll get rehabilitated and get a job drooling somewhere. Not much different from what I did before, really."

Yes, there was that. The reason, Lister realized now, that Sebastian had put up such little resistance in helping Lister get here. "You don't have to. That's why I'm here." His voice was scarily dead. From whom the words had come, he was not entirely certain.

Oh, he had been right from the start, hadn't he. Sebastian just wanted that anti-spy device so his record wouldn't be marred by deprivation of the State of a working body. He'd just say it was self-defense, or some such rot. "What, you'll give me a merciful out? Alter me? I'm not one of those better-dead-than-humiliated, Sebbie. Humiliate me any day."

"It's all I have to offer," Lister said, looking dead ahead. Humiliated? Billy had no idea. Rimmer certainly wouldn't have, though the reaction would have been as typical of him as it was of Sebastian's layabout brother. None of them had ever actually seen rehabilitation surgery take place; seen the humanity drain from a person's face until there no longer was a person there. Sebastian had. It had been part of a grand tour of the State Hospital shortly after his first term as Voter-Colonel. That _was_ death, just without the mercy of release. But Sebastian could offer that release, even if Lister wasn't sure he could let him go through  
with it. As Voter-Colonel he had connections, favors that could be called in, knowledge of loopholes in the system. He could get Billy transferred to Alterations. Their methods were quick and painless. Alteration was not so much a punishment as a means of corrective social engineering - pain served no purpose, so there was none. In all probability, the other department heads would be satisfied as long as Billy was rendered harmless, by whatever means. He was unlikely to encounter any resistance. He might even manage to get Billy into one of the Voluntary Life-Change suites used by terminally ill or old high-standing citizens wishing to retire peacefully. Relaxing music, a last meal and drink, a soft bed in which to fall gently asleep and never wake. That he could offer. Bastard that he was.

"Well, take it and stuff it." Billy turned his back to Sebastian. His shoulder blades began to itch fiercely. Sebastian always _did_ trust his own judgment over Billy's.

"And that's it? You know what'll happen now, yeah?" It was stupid to get angry, but Lister did so anyway. It was not the first stupid thing he had done in his life, nor would it be the last. As for Sebastian, well, he could do with a little stupid.

Billy turned to face his brother. The itching was far too much. If Sebastian were going to act on his own, Billy wanted to see it coming. "Whatever it is, I won't be _dead_!"

"Ye'll be as good _as_!" Worse, but if he didn't want to realize, Lister couldn't force him. Sebastian could, but Lister held him back. For now.

"What, you won't be happy 'til I am? I'm still too much of an _embarrassment_ to you?" Something else clicked into place. "Especially now?" Billy's voice was whinily angry.

"I'm not happy now! I don't want you hurt! Arn, Billy, I don't care!" Pointless, futile anger rose in Lister, and he rose with it, wishing his momentum had somewhere to go, but it didn't; he ended up swaying slightly from side to side, his arms dead weights.

"Dead is hurt, in my book!" Billy barked.

"All I know is I love you! I don't _want_ you to die! In any way." He didn't know what to do. But Sebastian _always_ knew what to do; he was close to panic, and Lister didn't feel much better.

Billy stuttered. He had never seen Sebastian like this before, so open and helpless. But, his mind told him desperately, he had never been in line to be Rehabilitated before. And Sebastian was a _damn_ good citizen. Maybe he was just putting on the world's best act of open and helpless.

"But I can't stop it, I can't!" Acute desperation clawed at Lister's insides. There had to be something he could do! There was always something he could do, wasn't there? "I want to; _I'd_ die for ya, if I could. But I can't!"

Billy looked at Sebastian's suit. Immaculate, perfectly tailored, falling in clean pleats over the man's solidly muscular body, clean and strong from clean living. A perfect counterpart to Billy's pallid softness. "No, that'd be stupid. You know that. Nobody would stand for it." He added, under his breath, "Lestofallme." That was the worst of it. It just plain didn't _matter_ if this were some game, some Rehabilitation act, or some other scheme of Sebastian's. Sebastian was, and always would be, the sultry giggle from the bunk below him, the warm body shaking with his fear of the dark; no matter how many layers of Citizen had buried that, maybe even suffocated it to death, Billy could not bring himself to forget it all.

"I was never the smart one. In either universe." Lister wasn't stupid, that he knew, but didn't _know_ a lot of things. He could use what he knew in clever ways, but what good was that when there was so little there to begin with? Sebastian had decent grades, but he could never concentrate on school-work enough to improve them, and knowledge passed through his mind like deviants through the Ministry of Alteration's front door. He had to be constantly vigilant to keep himself in line, and found there was less and less time for anything else. And now... There was hardly any time left at all. "Hell... If they... If they..." Tears pushed at Lister's eyes. He was glad; perhaps some of the pressure in his head would leak out with them.

"Well, I'm sure the dumb as shit one here and now." Billy shrugged helplessly, looking at Sebastian's suit. "Look.. I did what I did. I mean, from the start on. I wouldn't be alive if you hadn't protected me. I resented it. Still do. But I loved you anyway." Sebastian looked at him, teary-eyed, studying his face as if to make a photograph in his mind. Billy couldn't imagine why, he'd throw away most of the family pictures they'd had at home. And soon Billy would be going the same way; thrown out with the trash. Unwanted. "I don't know what you expected out of it." Billy paused. "Come to think, what _did_ you expect?"

"I don't have any answers for ya. I just know how I feel. I'll die here without you," Lister said, honestly. "Lose what little soul I have left." It was true; Sebastian agreed. He had been in the game too long, lived without restraints and the moral reinforcement of the State for far, far too long. He was beginning to doubt. Rather fast and rather violently. Lister suddenly understood fully the first time what people called a 'sinking feeling'; it felt as though all his internal organs were making a run for it through the nearest available exit.

"Cut that sappy crud. That's not you. Or me."

"Maybe you don't know me as well as you think you did." It would be like them, Rimmer and Billy both, to misunderstand every single effort Lister and Sebastian had ever made towards them.

Billy shrugged. "I guess not. Not if you're not disgusted that you did... that."

Lister stepped back, leaving this one to Sebastian, who seemed unusually subdued. Finally, he spoke. "There's a part of me that wants to be... but..." He looked up. "He brought Billy into the game to try to change him. Sebastian did, yeah? Thing is, it changed him, too."

"Better quit talking about yourself in the third person if you don't want to get rehabilitated yourself," Billy muttered.

Lister tapped his pocket. "Can't hear us, remember. I'm not so stupid that I'd say something like that in public."

Billy sighed and spread his arms. "It didn't work, though, did it? I'm still a nasty grotty pile of sm..." the word bubbled out of his Game memories, and he stuffed it back into the back of his mind, "crud!"

"No. Never. All of me knows that now." Lister gave a small shake of his head. "There's a part of me that's Sebastian, yeah. But that part doesn't want to be here any more than the part that's Lister does, now." And all of him loved the wreck of a man in front of him as much as the space-hero inside.

"Well, too smegging bad," Billy snarled. "Because you are. You took your half-hour to so _kindly_ offer to kill me? No thanks. Pack that offer and take off." Billy turned his back again, and it promptly began to itch again.

No. This was all wrong. More wrong than the rest of all this insanity. It shouldn't end like this. "Please." The word struggled out of Lister's throat as through he'd been dehydrated for days. He always worked something out, didn't he? Wasn't he always in control? At work, in his office, with applicants for alteration; with Blue Midget - he'd learned to fly real good, hadn't he? He could, he couldn't... he could... It was getting dark. He felt faint. "Don't let it end like this."

Billy shivered at the sound of Sebastian's voice. If it was an act, it was a damn good one. But Sebastian was good at _everything_ , wasn't he? "How do you _want_ it to end?"

"I don't know! I just don't want to walk out of here know you'll..." Lister swallowed, "fade away with this as yer last memory of me."

Billy turned around. There was a certain freedom, he reflected, in knowing that he was in the queue to be Rehabilitated. He realized that it didn't matter what game Sebastian played. It wouldn't make too terribly much difference, at this point. "Fine. Do you know what I want my last memory of you to be?"

Surprised that he was able to speak through the morass of emotion clouding him, Lister croaked, "What?"

Billy stepped forward, looking down. Looking at that suit. He reached out to touch it, unbuttoning the jacket, feeling the soft fabric, far better than anything he had ever owned, whisper through his fingers. He had always wanted to do this, hadn't he? And if he was already set to pay the price, he might as well be _truly_ deserving of it. Sebastian looked at him, just breathing, as Billy fumbled with the suit. He had never unzipped a fly on a suit as magnificent as the one in his hands, after all, and he didn't want to tear it. He reached in, feeling astonishingly awkward. He had thought he had no shame left, but a remnant was tickling  
the back of his mind, making him clumsy. He swatted it away. Sebastian still just looked, breathing. He seemed almost frozen in time, which Billy supposed was better than a number of alternatives he could imagine. The penis inside seemed interested, if confused. Billy wondered if Sebastian were able to control even _that_ \- but no matter, no matter. He slid to his knees with a painful thud.

Rimmer's hair - no, Billy's, definitely Billy's - felt strangely soft under Lister's fingers as he stroked it awkwardly. The texture brought something out in him, some deep-set tenderness that seemed Sebastiantine in origin. Vague memories of _safe_ and _close_ and _home_ overcame him, and he closed his eyes, concentrating on the strands, the way they caressed his fingers.

Billy took the half-erection in his hand and stroked it. The erection firmed as he did. The loose skin over the top was as smooth as the suit that covered it, and Billy wavered between delight at the feel and annoyance - was there _any_ part of the man that wasn't perfect? But the former won out as Billy leaned forward and licked it. It was salty and slightly bitter with precome, but had none of the sour muskiness that the crotches he had been close to in his past had evidenced. It was... delicious. "This," he said, licking the underside - the clean, dark skin so lovely on his tongue.

An odd un-Lister-like quality of self-control came over Lister as the tongue hit his cock. "Yes," he said, softly, moaning like he was afraid to as Billy licked his testicles. And there was fear, or the echo of fear, from so many nights struggling not to give in, not to touch himself, not to make a sound. He wound both hands in Billy's frizzy hair, concentrating on that simple action.

Billy studied Sebastian's erection contemplatively, stroking it as he built up saliva in his mouth. He let the saliva dribble out over the erection, sucking at the head as Sebastian sighed in affirmative. The problem, Billy pondered, was that he was just _not_ going to be able to remember this when he was marched off to be Rehabilitated. His mind was far too good at worrying at the present; it would be sure to fill itself with the earth tones of the corridor, with the cyborgs, with the doctors in their smocks, stained rusty-red with old blood. It would not fill itself with memories of a lovely cock in his mouth. From that standpoint, Billy considered, Sebastian's offer made sense. Billy mumbled around his mouthful, "Do you have a gun?" He stroked the base of the shaft.

"They took it away," Lister mumbled.

So why in hell had Sebastian made his offer? "Damn. That wouldn't be a bad way to go. Can't you break my neck or something?" Billy sucked more into his mouth. If this all ended in a bang, he wanted to make absolutely sure that he was enjoying it.

Something burst inside of Lister. He started crying in earnest, mixing his sniffles with moans and whimpered incoherencies. He hadn't known what he was thinking for nearly a day now, and now he no longer knew what he felt. It was pain and grief and sadness and joy and pleasure all intertwined, all part of the same, oppressive, heavy cloud in his brain. He couldn't live like this for long. It was killing him.

"Oh, stop that." Billy was starting to get a little sniffly himself, and that was detracting from his enjoyment. He sucked lazily, running his tongue along the cock in his mouth.

Lister stroked Billy's hair, trying to slick it flat, as though he had tried to do so before. And he had, so many times, even back when they were kids and it was darker than his. It would never stay down, not even their mother rubbed that pasty wax all over it, or gave it to Sebastian, exasperated, asking him to try because she was at her wit's end. Yes, one hand on that wild hair, and one hand on Billy's face. Lister choked as Billy pulled back and licked the end of the cock like it was a treat. His hands shook with the effort of keeping it all in, but he had to keep it all in, because masturbation was unStately, and homosexual thoughts were for deviants, and deviants got rehabilitated. Like Billy. Oh smeg, like Arn!

Billy sucked Sebastian in completely. The end of his head bumped the back of Billy's throat, gagging him a little. He was so _long_ ; there was so much of that magnificent erection... Billy felt delirious with bliss.

Even Sebastian had to allow Lister to gasp at that, his head falling backwards. His eyes were wide open, staring blindly at the ceiling, which seemed such a waste, but he didn't want to look down either, afraid of what he might find there. And Billy started to hum, reaching his hand inside of Lister's suit to stroke his thighs, and Lister hunched over slightly, choking, like he did not know how to react, like this had never been done to him before. But it had, so many times, although not with this intensity, and not by anyone even remotely like _Arn_.

Billy felt Sebastian clutch his shoulder as he sucked hard, humming to buzz the cock pleasingly; he usually hummed tunelessly, but one came to him from somewhere, nagging at him, making him hum to it as he tasted and stroked. Oh, the anticipation of Sebastian's come flooding his mouth, feeling the man shake as Billy swallowed it down, sucking it all out...

That tune... it burrowed into Lister's body, reminding him of a childhood he never had. Instinctively, his hand reached towards that safe, soft hair again, when another vibration hit him, closer to his thigh. He jolted, his hand changing course from Billy's hair to his own pocket. "Shit..." he mumbled between clenched teeth.

Billy felt the movement. The feel of _we will be caught_ sparked a movement that was instinctive, almost a reflex; he sprang back, tucking Sebastian's penis into his trousers in one deft movement. He found himself standing, facing a brother whose suit betrayed nothing of what they had just done. _Nothing_. Just an unbuttoned jacket, and that spoke only of sitting down. "Duty calls," Billy said, sarcastically.

That odd control was still with him, Lister marveled. He pulled Rimmer close with a wild look in his eyes, but he did not push him up against the wall; did not tear his overalls open and pummel into him, biting his neck, grabbing his arse... He stood. Firmly. "Five minute warning." There was still time, though not nearly enough. Postponing the inevitable, like pushing the snooze-button on a doomsday device. Not enough.

"Five minutes." What, was Billy supposed to take it from the top? Was Sebastian upset because his work had called before Billy had finished sucking him off? Oh, no, he was likely upset because Billy had not finished sucking him off before his work called. Billy stiffened, petulant.

If this was it - and oh hell no, it couldn't be, but _yes_ it was - then Lister needed something more. Something; anything. Lister breathed on Billy's lips, _Arn's_ lips; their noses touched, and Lister tried to communicate through his eyes every emotion that he had. He exhaled softly, feeling that scrawny body stiffen. He leaned forward to let their lips touch for just a moment, very softly, very tenderly, his eyes open. This was something to savor; a non-verbal 'I love you.'

Billy's lips twitched. Such a _brotherly_ kiss.

Lister twitched, but it was just one of Sebastian's small facial spasms; he needed that man's control now. His body stiffened as he took a step back with robot-like precision, counting under his breath. It would not be long now; less than half a minute, soon. Finally, his head fell, as though his neck could no longer support it.

All of the energy seemed to drain out of Billy as Sebastian stepped away. Billy turned and sat on the floor, trying to remember _touching_ and _tasting_. He needed those memories; he had to bank them away, and any little interruption - like this one, the guard poking his head into the room - would drive them away, minnows running away as he tried to grab them from the lake their mum had taken them to when they were so much younger.

"Voter-Colonel?" the guard asked, his eyes darting between the two occupants of the room.

"I'm fine." Lister kept his face down, thankful that the floor was there for him to look at rather than Billy. Rather than the man that used to be Arn, huddled in a corner, and dammit, wasn't his peripheral vision supposed to get worse at his age? The guard disappeared, but the hunched figure didn't. Lister stood there, torn.

"Sounds like you have work to do, Voter-Colonel," Billy muttered. He looked at his hands. Maybe he could remember them, instead. "You've been away awhile." He turned to look at Sebastian over his shoulder. He didn't want to remember his hands.

Lister opened his mouth to say something, but Sebastian made him hold back and bite his lip. On reflection, Lister agreed. What was there to say, after all? _Don't look up_ , Sebastian urged him further, but Lister did. As he met Billy's eyes for just a moment, he knew that had been a mistake. There were limits, even to Sebastian's control. The trite reassurances he had been about to utter came out as a cough, and he looked away quickly, moving towards the door with efficiency. He could manage, if he did this quickly. Very quickly.

_Let him go_ , part of Billy said. _Have you no pride?_ Another part of him replied _No_ , and Billy stumbled to his feet. "Just..." His voice was pathetic and small. "Before you go..."

The door was there. Right there. Lister could touch it if he just reached out, which is what he should do; open the smegging thing and get out. But he didn't. Breathing seemed to be enough of an effort right now. Maybe if he stared at it for long enough, it would open of its own accord.

Billy moved in front of Sebastian, his back to the door. He took Sebastian's lapels awkwardly in his hands, listening to frantic sounds behind the door, feeling Sebastian breathe. This, at least, was something that every part of himself was willing to go along with. He tilted his head, pursing his lips, closing his eyes.

No human being could resist that, Lister thought, as Sebastian mused darkly that at least that proved he still was one. He seemed to fall onto Billy, grabbing his face in his hands - Lister seeing only Rimmer, only Arn.

Billy kissed Sebastian, his mouth open. Sebastian kissed back, frantically, and Billy let him; he tried to focus on the softness of Sebastian's lips, the clean, toothpaste-like taste of the mouth as he licked it. Good feelings, those. They'd make good memories. He stroked Sebastian's cheek. That was pretty good, too.

Shaking, incoherent, Lister felt himself slip away. They were all need now, him and Sebastian both; he was not really there, not pressed against the door of a hospital holding cell, but in a place where this could go further, could go on forever. As his frantic desperation was met with slow deliberation, he found himself winding down, coughing in lieu of breath until he was able to match those tender motions, caress rather than attack.

The rational part of Billy's brain prodded at him, reminding him that he had a short window to end this before it was ended for him. He turned the kiss into a few rounds of sucking on Sebastian's full lips, tasting them as the man just let it happen. Billy tried to ignore the banging sounds outside of the door as he turned the sucking into an almost-chaste kiss of Sebastian's lips. He quickly dropped those smooth lapels, scurrying over to his cot. _Remember, remember_.

Lister's lips quivered as they were abandoned. He felt as though someone had just shown him around paradise, then snatched the key away from him and slammed the door in his face. His voice, when he found it, was so quiet it could almost not be heard. "Can't leave you now." He stumbled backwards, sliding away from the door as he felt it open, because it was already far too late.

Billy sat on his cot. He looked down at his hands, but his eyes were unfocused. He threaded the same tape on his mental reel, over and over again, trying to burn those lips and that mouth into his brain. He did not look up as armed guards dragged Sebastian protectively out of the room. He did not look up as rifles pointed at him from every direction, in a way that would have taken out the entire contingent from crossfire and left Billy shredded enough to sprinkle on tacos if they had fired. He ran the kiss through his mind over and over as the guards had frantic radio-conversations and hushed arguments. After a few moments, they gave up and left, an over-zealous youngster taking one last look before securing the lock behind him. And Billy still sat on his cot, trying to remember.

 

Outside, Sebastian, State-appointed Voter-Colonel, was dusted down and politely questioned by overly friendly guards. He thanked them, answering their questions, keeping calm, signing a few autographs for those who asked for them. He rushed nothing, only walking quietly away when all interest had died down, and everyone except those on duty had wandered off. For some reason, that tune Billy had hummed was now stuck in his mind, long forgotten words adding themselves to the simple, melancholy melody.

As soon as he could, he dropped into the side of the hallway and opened his coat, Lister's fingers fiddling with the heavy fabric until the inner pocket revealed itself, loaded gun and all. He looked at it for a moment, thinking of that song - a lullaby, he remembered, one Billy had sung to him late at night when Sebastian would crawl into his bed, the darkness getting to him. Billy would hold him tightly, singing that song until they both fell asleep, warm bodies pressed close together in the night.

He closed his coat and leaned heavily against the wall.

_Now don't you worry none,_  
Life is a dream  
Night swallowed up the sun  
Moon shines its beam  
Let all your troubles slip  
Gently downstream  
No, don't you worry none,  
Life is a dream. 


	4. Chapter 4

Billy had lost track of how many times he had replayed the kiss in his mind. He had been determined to run it over and over until he could think of nothing else, until it would swamp out the reality of his coming Rehabilitation. In his effort to imprint it on his brain, however, he had overdone it; every replay seemed to suck more and more emotion out of the act, until he felt a disinterested observer, watching a man soullessly press his lips to his brother's.

He shifted on the cot, shivering.

The door slid open soundlessly. Only a touch of air on Billy's cheek let him know that it had opened. He did not look up from his hands. He just could not bring himself to care about whatever whoever might come in had to say.

Motion caught the corner of Billy's eye. Black trousers walked in and took a turn around the room. Black gloves, just at the upper edge of his vision, slid off of pale hands, a glint of gold shining off of one finger. Sebastian had a ring like that, something to do with Ministry employment or some such. Billy filed that fact firmly away. It wasn't helping with anything. The hands played with the gloves as a gentle "a-hem" sounded. Billy stiffened, resolutely not looking up. He could tell from the walk that it wasn't Sebastian, and he tried very much not to care about that, either.

"Today is your lucky day, Citizen!" a voice as smooth as snakeskin declared. While they were dripping with condescension, there was an undertone that suggested the speaker actually believed his own words.

"Mmrph," Billy muttered. He shifted as the black trousers came nearer.

"Yes, it's true. Not many people are given the chance to make a fresh, clean start; to have all their sins," Billy saw a hand wave in an oddly extravagant gesture, "washed away, but you... you, Mister Doyle, are getting that chance."

"Lovely." Billy could find no appropriate emotion to put into his voice, so he left them all out.

The smooth tones of his visitor were measured, almost drawled. "Yes."

Billy looked up. A pair of disturbingly bright blue eyes were staring at him with something akin to amused anticipation. He hunted for a name, and found one. Langley - the Minister of Morality. He stopped in to visit Sebastian once in a while, and had always looked at Billy as if Sebastian had dropped a turd in the middle of his living room carpet. Something horribly distasteful and disgusting, but which he was too polite to mention.

"Yes, in a few moments, some," he flattened his voice in mocking imitation of Billy, " _lovely_ nurses of The People will escort you out of this place an into your life as a carefree, blameless new man." He paused, his index finger poking at his lower lip as though he was afraid to actually touch it. "Unless..."

Billy tilted his head. Langley was getting at something, and with Rehabilitation in his future, Billy was in a mood to listen to just about any alternative.

"You know... Billy..." Langley said, hunkering down to face Billy. His voice was lower, almost husky, and there was something about the way he said Billy's name that seemed both familiar and highly disturbing indeed. "There are others like you."

"Don't I know it." There were cold sores in the world, as well. What did Langley care?

"Oh, yes..." Langley studied Billy's features as if evaluating a work of art. "You know, Billy, we try our best to keep the State running as smoothly as possible. You know that, don't you?"

Billy nodded. Rumor had it that Langley was the strictest Minister of Morality in decades. Doddering old men proclaimed him the savior of decency.

"Of course you do. How could you not, with a brother like Sebastian?" Langley smiled briefly as he mentioned that name, as though he enjoyed the taste of it. Billy twitched. Hearing his brother's name on that man's lips bothered him.

A frown flashed over Langley's face, quickly, like the twitches Sebastian would get when he... _No._ Billy didn't want to associate his memories of Sebastian with this pale, skinny monster. "Nevertheless, there are those who don't entirely... fit in, so to speak. Square cogs in our _lovely_ machinery, if you will."

Billy looked back down at his hands. Perhaps it was not an alternative, after all. This was sounding like the introduction to a Sebastian-like lecture. "Yes," he muttered, inspecting his cuticles.

Langley was looking at his own hands, stroking them smoothly against one another and watching those sliding motions rather than Billy's face. "Sometimes, Billy, these cogs are like you. Useless. Worthless. Of no value to the State. But there are other times when we find ourselves with - for example - a Minister of Morality with.... shall we say... unfortunate tendencies." He looked up, and that smile twitched again, making his well-trimmed mustache jump. There was an aura of excited anticipation over him.

Billy revised his previous thought. This was sounding less like a Sebastian lecture. He frowned at his hands, shifting. He was going to have to pay attention. Was he going to go to Rehabilitation with those disturbing blue eyes uppermost in his mind?

"These are only examples, you understand," Langley added, quickly. "With no relation to reality whatsoever. But yes, there are those among the higher-ups who have _different_ needs. Needs that the State cannot provide if it were to follow its own rules." He lowered his hands, and for a moment, it seemed as though he was about to put them on Billy's thighs. There was a last-minute hesitation, however, and they landed neatly on his own.

Billy looked up, arching one eyebrow. This was moving in a new direction. A direction he had some experience with, if he were judging this properly.

"Not that the State ever breaks its own rules. You understand that, don't you, Billy?" Langley said, pointedly.

"Of _course_ ," Billy agreed, expansively. He looked away at the wall, then back at Langley. "What does all of this have to do with me?"

Langley's face twisted into an unamused smile. His face looked different, like his facial hair had not been styled to fit that expression. "I have a proposition for you, Billy. Or Mister Doyle, if you prefer." Well-practiced condescension oozed from his mouth like foam from a men's room soap-dispenser.

Billy was not good at blank expressions, but he tried to put one on. He dropped his eyebrow to its proper place as he looked at Langley, waiting for him to speak. The man leaned in closer, even more clearly invading Billy's personal space. Billy let him. He knew how _this_ kind of thing worked. "We both know what _you_ are," Langley said, with poorly disguised disgust. "What I am doing is giving you a chance to live out your sick, depraved," Langley shook a little, watching Billy's lips, "lusts in a manner which benefits the State."

"Do they have a form for that?" Billy asked, feeling a faint, almost desultory hope tugging at his gut, like the feeling of being about to vomit a poisonous meal before it caused any lasting harm. If the offer were legit, however, it should have the paperwork to go with it. "Something stroke something, Citizen not Rehabilitated due to special conditions?"

Langley, who had been following the movements of Billy's lips with a the attention of a connoisseur, was taken slightly aback. He pulled his head back to look at Billy sharply. "Of course they do; it's a standard 4911-B."

Billy nodded, tasting the idea. "You just fill that out, and I don't go to Rehabilitation." It was not the most delightful proposition to have passed his way, but he had to admit, looking back on some of the people he had slept with, and looking forward to Rehabilitation, it was far from the worst.

Langley's smile seemed to Billy to be more apropos to a diner about to skewer a chunk of meat than a person naming the terms of a deal. "That's right." He bent even closer. The twitchings of his face made Billy's almost spasm in return, if nothing else than for the fact that Langley's mustache now tickled his upper lip in a very disconcerting way.

Billy nodded. "Will Sebastian know?" he asked, quietly. That would not do. The man was too good of a blasted Citizen. He would carry Billy bodily off to Rehabilitation if he caught wind of this deal.

One of Langley's hands had begun to reach out, shakily, to pluck at Billy's grotty jumpsuit, but it pulled back at that question. He looked like a child that had been caught with his hand in the cookie jar, and was about to fall off the chair he was balancing on top of to reach it. "Of course not!" he snapped.

Well, as long as that was clear. Billy nodded, sitting very still. He worked his hands together. The proposition was simple enough, but he found that he was uncertain of himself, feeling Langley's stare. Just what did these upper-class twits do with each other? Was he supposed to take the initiative? Top? Bottom? Wear women's underwear?

That appeared to be the answer Langley wanted. "I think you would do very well in this little arrangement, Billy. Very well indeed." He stood up, leisurely, giving Billy plenty of time to notice his mirthless, face-splitting grin. Billy nodded again, looking straight ahead. Unfortunately, that now put Langley's crotch - which was displaying an all-too-prominent erection - at Billy's eye level. He looked back up at Langley's face. The man was still talking, rather agitatedly. Was he being turned on by the sound of his own voice? Or was it the fact that he was making someone below him suck him off? Billy neither knew nor cared. "And honestly Arnold, can you hear me! For you'd be kept well, of course; a decent bed - not the same every night of course, but that's to be I've tapped into your expected."

Billy frowned. He had heard another voice speaking, and not through Langley's lips. They had continued to move to his own thoughts; the other voice, one that sounded female, had cut through it, as if a tape had switched sources. Both voices had stopped now. Langley stood there, leering with undisguised lust. Was he expecting an answer to a question Billy had not heard? Trying to keep his face and voice neutral, Billy ventured, "What?"

"Yes, that's right Arnold! Can you hear me now? I've tapped into your light bee's and a hot meal now and then interface!"

Not only did Langley's voice stop when that other voice spoke, Billy realized, but all other sounds - footsteps of guards outside, his breathing and the shuruth of his jumpsuit sliding over the cot as he moved - disappeared, as well. That did it. He was cracking up. Maybe he _should_ be heading off to Rehabilitation. He opened his mouth to say as much - but stopped. The part of him that had played the Game, the Rimmer-persona he had adopted in his coma, came forward and struggled for control of Billy's mouth. Billy, startled, yielded it. "Oh. Right. Yes." He shifted. He felt an odd split in his head, almost as if two people were jockeying for use of his body.

When Langley spoke again, it was as though he wasn't really speaking at all. His lips moved, but the words that emerged did not match the movements at all. "What about now? Is that any clearer?" The voice was definitely a woman's voice; clear, accentless and eloquent, but with an undertone of worry and urgency.

"Better." The Rimmer memories were howling with recognition. _Light bee! Interface!_ Billy tried to squelch them. This was not terribly sane!

"Oh, thank goodness! I was afraid I'd pleasure to so many people sorry - lost it a bit again there; I was afraid I wouldn't be able to get fellated." The voice swapped back and forth between Langley's and this new female voice with a disquieting lack of transition.

Billy's lip twitched. The part of him that was Rimmer wanted to communicate with that other voice. That Langley fellow's babbling was distracting, however! Billy's eyebrows danced as he re-asserted himself. He irately told the Rimmer persona that he knew how to shut men up. He reached out to Langley's trousers, unbuttoning the top and sliding the zipper open.

"Hello? Did you get that?" There was definitely a note of urgency in her voice now, whoever she was.

"Yes," Rimmer wanted to say. Billy said it breathily, ingratiatingly.

"Arnold?" Confusion now, but definitely female; Langley merely stood there rigidly, smiling his pleased, evil smile.

Billy licked his hand and reached in, tensing at the idea of what he might find in there. He relaxed somewhat as it turned out to be a fairly standard erection, quite clean and smooth, which he pulled out and started stroking. "Tell me more," Rimmer said.

"Oh. Right. Good." Did she clear her throat? It was hard to tell with all the other sensory impressions Rimmer was trying to avoid and Billy was forced to concentrate on. She certainly seemed a bit flustered. Langley looked at the ceiling and shook, oblivious to anything but Billy's attentions.

Billy licked the tip of the erection. It tasted almost completely neutral, with just a hint of salty bitterness. Rather like Sebastian's, Billy had to admit, and wondered if all of the elite exfoliated and disinfected their cocks. He stroked it firmly and slowly, sliding one hand around to grasp Langley's buttock, as Rimmer waited expectantly for more information from that odd, disembodied voice. It obliged - alternating, like a radio tuned into a weak signal, with Langley's moans.

"Like I said, I tapped into your filthy dirty - sorry - bee, and I've got you and Dave hooked up to the dream-monitor. You seem to have fallen into some sort of _State yes!_ coma. But I can't see you right now; are you all right?"

"Yes. What do I have to do?" Rimmer asked, as Billy stroked Langley, kneading his buttock firmly and slowly.

Odd groaning noises, the degenerated remnants of Langley's voice, kept popping into the woman's statement as it faded in and out. For a few confused moments, Rimmer thought she was having an orgasm. "You will have to find Dave and convince him this isn't reality - he's gone into some sort of cognitive dysfunctional shock."

"That will get me out?" Rimmer asked, just before Billy leaned in to suck the head of Langley's erection.

"I can't see him anymore, either," the woman said with some annoyance. "There's no way to suck me harder, yes! As far as I can tell, that will get you out, yes. You both need to suck it harder, bitch! Sorry, both need to be in the same, agreeable state of mind."

Rimmer sighed and mumbled, "Fine... bloody great..." very quietly around Langley's cock. Billy could sense that the Rimmer part of his mind was not enjoying this at all. He wondered what the man's problem was. As cocks went, it wasn't bad. Not even big enough to gag. Billy sucked it harder as requested, pulling it all of the way into his mouth, twiddling the man's testicles.

The worry in the woman's voice came through more strongly, much like her signal as she chimed in again. "Are you all right, Arnold? You sound a little filthy dirty whore!"

Rimmer was tired of sucking, and against Billy's recommendation, he pulled his mouth off for a moment. Billy continued to stroke hard with his hand. "Just lovely."

"You need to find Dave. Soon." The woman sounded impatient. Well, that was fine for her, Rimmer thought; she didn't have two competing personalities in her head and an aggressive cock to contend with! "I'm not sure how much long..." the following word was Langley's strangled groan, "I" then she faded in again, "can last."

"Right. Got it." Rimmer pulled back to ponder this, leaving Billy free to start sucking again. He knew that a hand job would not get him out of this. That was the kind of thing a fellow could do to himself, after all.

"Be safe you fucking, cock-sucking whore! My connection is suck me dry you..." Langley's rant ended in an orgasmic whine as he thrust hard into Billy's mouth. Billy sucked, swallowing come mechanically and competently as Langley spasmed and shivered, cursing as he thrust to completion. The woman, perhaps mercifully at this point, remained silent.

The thought of something called Listerine popped into Billy's head. The clean, sharp taste that the Rimmer memories associated with it were appealing.

Langley pulled himself angrily out of Billy's mouth, looking down on him as if he were lower than the sperm he had just swallowed in the hierarchy of life. That, certainly, Billy was used to. He let go of Langley's buttock, clasped his hands, and rested his elbows on his knees again.

"I see we are going to become fast friends, you and I." Langley smiled curtly, zipped up, and turned on his heel.

"When do I get out of here?" Billy asked the floor.

With an expression of puzzled amusement, Langley turned to look at him again. Billy wanted to sit quietly. Rimmer stood.

"Oh, you are never getting out of here. There's a facade to keep up, after all. You might get... visitors, from time to time. Then, if you are good, you might be allowed a few house-calls." Langley's voice was matter-of-fact, as though he was explaining the emergency procedures to a plane-load of bored passengers. The twinkle in his eyes betrayed his evident enjoyment of all this, however.

Rimmer frowned, walking closer. "I want to see Sebastian." Billy almost gibbered in shock. See Sebastian? That was the _last_ thing Billy wanted to do!

Langley stood his ground, if a little nervously. The twinkle was gone from his eye as he gave a short burst of surprised, unamused laughter. "Out of the question."

"Double or nothing," Rimmer said, firmly. "I see my brother, or you lose your... Stately assistant."

Swallowing, Langley radiated false confidence. To Rimmer, it seemed rather an amateurish attempt. "Do you really think you are in any position, Mr. Doyle, to _negotiate_?"

Billy found that he was rather enjoying this assertiveness. There was a certain power to it, and a delight at Langley's discomfiture. The side of his mouth quirked. "You wouldn't believe the positions I can be in when I negotiate..." Rimmer was faintly disgusted, which Billy found amusing. But Rimmer could not deny the effect on Langley, who shivered, and so he crossed his arms. The cool confidence was a novel sensation for Billy. Wait, was it? He could remember it from the coma - some of the more interesting memories of that Rimmer fellow, the memories that seemed to want to take over his mind.

"Erm..." Langley replied, sweating slightly as Rimmer stepped closer. He looked entirely out of his element; his poise, his bearing, everything about the man that had seemed so intimidating to Billy was now gone; only a cowering shadow remained. Rimmer lashed out a foot, kicking Langley very hard in the crotch. Langley made a sound that sounded a little like "guuurrghwhaaa?" as he folded in half.

Billy looked down, utterly startled. He had just kicked a State official in the crotch. Hell and depravity! Rehabilitation would probably be a walk in the park compared to the sentence for _that_! Rimmer took advantage of Billy's shock to pull Langley's jacket open, looking for weapons. Something in his jacket beeped; Rimmer found a little black device in his breast pocket that looked just like the one Sebastian had shown him earlier, beeping its five-minute warning steadily. He threw it away with a snort, then found and took a gun in an inner pocket. He picked a still-moaning Langley up, putting him in a solid hold with an arm around his neck and the gun to his temple. "We're going to go see my brother," he said, his voice deadly calm. Langley whimpered in assent. "Walk," Rimmer said, marching Langley out of the room. As they exited, he changed his position to stand slightly behind Langley, the gun solidly in the man's back, but not visible to anyone looking casually at them. "Act like yourself. Walk out of here. Do anything that makes anybody suspicious, and your happy bits are the first to go."

Langley replied in a voice like a boy soprano. "Yes..."

There was no resistance left in the man now. When Rimmer prodded Langley with the gun, he merely yelped quietly and walked.

Billy spent the walk through the corridors and the extensive security trying to come to terms with what he was doing. That gave Rimmer time to ponder what had happened. He was Rimmer. Definitely. Smeg it all, he was Ace, the Space Hero Extraordinaire. He had gone back to Starbug to see Lister again - _Sebastian_ , his Billy-self insisted petulantly, refusing the image of overalls and rasta plaits. Then something had happened. Not a reality bubble. Something far stranger and far rarer. Something that someone on Starbug wanted to warn him about. Rimmer came out of his reverie as Langley lead him into the night, down into an open-air car-park. "Take me to your car," Rimmer ordered.

Despite his subservient demeanor, Langley seemed shocked enough to resist this. There was a look of confused horror about him. "I can't drive. My driver is a cyborg; he's off duty now. I can go get him..."

"Take me to your car."

That flat tone did its trick, as it always had done when Ace had used it, and Langley obediently lead Rimmer to a dark shooting brake.

"Open it," Rimmer ordered. "Get in the passenger's seat."

That horrified disbelief was back, but this time Langley did not protest. As soon as he was seated, Rimmer leaned over him, his torso in the car, smiling. Langley tried to push himself backwards into the seat. Rimmer and Billy enjoyed his fear for a moment; then Rimmer hit Langley very hard in the face with the gun-butt. Langley's head drooped limply. Rimmer stepped back and pulled off his coveralls. He tore them into strips and used those strips to tie Langley securely. He patted the man down, fishing his keys out of his trousers, then closed the door. He walked to the other side of the car and clambered into the driver's seat.

As he sat, Billy raged internally. He couldn't drive. Only high-ranking citizens were allowed to drive their own cars, and even most of them used cyborg drivers. Sebastian only drove himself to save the State the expense of employing a driver for him. Billy would be _lucky_ to get away with a slow and painful death after what he had done to Langley; he didn't need to steal the car on top of that. The last thing he should do was go to see Sebastian. He was smegging insane! Rimmer fumed, likewise; he _could_ smegging well drive, and he needed to see Lister - not Sebastian, damn it, Lister! He needed to get to Lister to get them both back to reality on Starbug. No, the reality was right there, where he sat! The two halves of himself struggled back and forth, neither wanting to give in, to admit that their reality, their existence, was only a hallucination. _Lister_ , Rimmer fumed. _Sebastian_ , Billy insisted. _Space Hero_ , Rimmer offered. _A drink and a good fuck_ , Billy countered.

Well.

Rimmer was amenable.

Billy was amenable.

Rimmer smiled, started the car, and drove unerringly to Sebastian's house.

Rimmer walked up to the door, wearing nothing but his underwear and holding a bloodstained gun. He felt a Billy-ish surge of glee at how ridiculous he must look; he practically bounced as he hit the buzzer, cringing at the wailing sound. There was no answer. Rimmer pressed the button again, but could still hear no response within. He  
frowned. This should be so much _fun_ \- and Lister wasn't playing along! He skulked around the house to the study's window. The Billy-ish glee was renewed at the skulking. It was almost like playing Citizens and Degenerates with Sebastian when he was young - even if he hadn't, really.

The study was dark inside. Rimmer slipped out of his underpants, put them over his fist, and punched through the window. He cleared the glass shards with his covered hand.

A hand shot out of the window, grabbing his arm tightly. Rimmer would have known that tan, hefty hand anywhere. Unfortunately, so would Billy. He grabbed the arm it was attached to in turn, hissing, "Lister! You never told me you picked up a tart on Starbug."

Sebastian frowned, peering at him with blood-shot eyes. "What the hell are you doing here, William?"

Rimmer quirked the side of his mouth. "May I come in?" he asked, excessively polite.

So it had come to this. His brother had finally gone mad. Well,  
considering his prospects, Sebastian supposed he couldn't blame him. He grunted, letting go of Billy's arm. "Get in before the People's Thought Police finds you."

Rimmer leapt through the broken window with agility. The sharp edges of glass cut his legs and feet, but he ignored it. He had experienced far worse in his time as Ace, after all.

Sebastian jumped back, startled at Billy's apparent agility. Those were not  
the movements of a washed-up alcoholic. The shock was enough for him not to notice Billy's nudity until his brother was practically touching him. He backed up further; there would be no more of that! That's how all this trouble had started in the first place. "The hell, Billy... What got into ya?"

Oh, enough of this Billy and Sebbie crap! "Starbug. There's a bird there, right? Good with computers."

So that was it - the game memories. A last, desperate attempt at escaping his inevitable fate. Sebastian wished he could allow Billy even that small comfort, but it would only make things worse in the end. He had learned that the hard way. He shook his head. "That's not real, Billy; who cares?"

"How would I know that?" Rimmer countered, crossing his arms.

Sebastian snorted, trying not to look at Billy's naked body. It still had such a hold on him, alter it all! He was stronger than this, he should be able to shake it off. "Ye said it yerself; this makes a lot more sense than the last man in the universe and his hologrammatic companion. I mean, 'hard light'?" His chuckle was unamused. "Come _on_!"

"She hacked into my light bee and _talked_ to me, Lister," Rimmer  
insisted. "Go on, tell me there wasn't a bird."

The only reason he was walking over to put his hands on Billy's shoulders, Sebastian told himself, was to prove that he could, without taking it any further. "You don't _have_ a light bee. It's all in yer head." And what a head. Face flustered, red and overly excited, covered in acne-scars  
and the remnants of rashes Sebastian didn't want to think about the cause of. Hair that looked like the dust-bunnies swarming the various dens passing as flats that Sebastian had visited him at during the course of his sad, going-nowhere life. Perhaps he should just hand him a mirror. And yet... he swallowed.

Rimmer reached up and took Lister's hands in his. This might take a while, he realized with resignation. Start at the beginning. "You're in a coma."

"Stop it," Sebastian said, quietly.

Rimmer frowned. He was used to being swooned at and immediately trusted and believed. What on Io was wrong with Lister that he couldn't simply do the same? He stepped forward and grabbed Lister by the small of the back, lifted him, and dropped him on the desk. The movement was quick and sure, one that Billy (the man himself had to confess) could not have done, not with his alcohol-softened muscles. "I'm Ace smegging Rimmer, Lister," Rimmer said, with certainty, as he hovered over Lister, his hands still on  
Lister's back.

The move was so unexpected that Sebastian did not have time to prevent his instinctual reaction. He felt Billy's hands on him, sensed the raw,  
exuberant vitality, and gasped. His mouth opened and his lower lip trembled as suppressed thoughts floated unwelcome to the surface of his mind again. "Hell, if only you were..." He grasped Billy's upper arms. They were as pale and sinewy as always, so how could they have picked him up with such ease?

"Could Billy have escaped from the State prison?" Rimmer asked. "Driven a car? Taken out your friend Langley?" He licked his lips in his eagerness. Smeg it all, he had facts on his side!

Sebastian's eyes widened. "You drove a _car_? No wonder you're in such a state - was anyone else hurt?"

Rimmer snorted. "Go take a look at it, eh, Listy?" He stepped away from Lister, inviting him with one arm to step outside.

"Stop calling me that," Sebastian said, plaintively. He was slipping. He could feel himself slipping, and that would not do. Not now.

"It's parked out front." Rimmer crossed his arms, doggedly.

This was just tedious. The longer he insisted on holding on to this  
fantasy, the harder it would be to let it go. Couldn't Billy see that? Sebastian felt tired. So very tired. "Billy... You can't go out there. They'll get ya. This place is under constant surveillance; it's a miracle they din't get ya yet."

Rimmer shook his head. "No miracles. Just me." He _was_ Ace, after all.

The desk was solid. He needed something solid, something stable, something that could root him in reality. Sebastian clutched at the edges of it, his knuckles white. That had always helped, when he was younger. Something to focus on, some solid object that was not intimidating or overwhelming like his emotions. "I'm tired of this, yeah?" Tired of fighting, tired of being  
given hope that was just going to get pulled away from under his feet at the last minute anyway.

Rimmer sat in the chair, his back straight. "So am I. Let's leave."

"We can't!" That was the thing, wasn't it? They couldn't leave, so pretending that they could was nothing but drawn-out torture. And Sebastian knew a thing or two about torture. Not everyone in the ministry followed the rules as closely as he did.

Rimmer sighed. Damn it, all that was required was for Lister to agree that he was in a coma, and then they could go! Was that so bloody difficult? "Only if you think we can't."

Sebastian raised an eyebrow. "What did they do to you in there - force ya  
to listen to self-help books-on-tape?"

Rimmer stood, his legs spread slightly. "You're the one who's keeping us here, Listy! That's what the bird said." Yes, the one Lister hadn't mentioned. Why hadn't he? "What's her name?"

This constant harping on about a world they could never go back to was starting make Sebastian rather irritated. The fact that it was unable to conceal his annoyance was making it all the worse. "What _bird_?"

Was that why the door had locked and refused to open? Were they stuck there because Lister was shagging some tart, and didn't have the balls to  
simply _tell_ him? "The one on Starbug!" Rimmer was shouting, he realized. "What's her smegging _name_?"

He could be calm, Sebastian thought, he could be centered. It was easy, he did it all the time. Why was it suddenly so hard? "There _is_ no Starbug." No rickety showers, no sniping and bickering, no fumblings in too-hard bunks that were far too narrow for two people. None of that. It was over. It never really had been at all.

Rimmer grabbed the lapels of Lister's smegging expensive suit jacket. "You slept with her, didn't you, Listy? Is that what this is all about?"

"What?" Sebastian was outraged. How _dare_ Billy of all people imply that Sebastian's sex-life was more sordid than it already was! As if sleeping with his own brother was not enough... But yes, he thought, calming down a little, Billy _would_ sink that low. Struggling to even further depths and dragging other people down with him was all that poor sod was good for.

"I came back at a bad time?" Rimmer yelled, shaking Lister a little.

Sebastian tried to grab Billy's arms, angry. His grip shouldn't be so strong - he couldn't even hold on to a bottle without spilling most of it when he tried to drink. "Fer State's sake, get a grip, Billy! I've never slept with anyone!" Not even Kris. State help him, not even her, back when he could have done so discreetly and married her afterwards. That would have been a smaller crime than tempting her to dishonor herself as he had done now! Guilt - horrible, paralyzing guilt - gripped him again, pushing the Lister-memories even further away.

"You slept with _me_ , you smegger," Rimmer growled, hanging on to Lister's lapels firmly. "I don't know how much time passed in your dimension. Time does strange things across them. But it was over fifty years for me, Listy. I tried to forget you. But you would just never leave me _alone_." Lister stopped, open-mouthed again, looking like some moronic goldfish. Well, he had the memory of one, didn't he? "I had to come back and see you again." Rimmer felt a little desperate. Smeg, was all of this because Lister didn't want him anymore and didn't want to tell him? He could take it. He could.

"I did sleep with you. I wanted you. Yes." William. His Billy. Oh by all that was Stately, he had wanted him for as long as he could remember. That was his shame, his great shame - greater than all the other urges nagging at him day and night, tempting him away from the true, Stately path. It was what had forced him to become the man he was today. Sebastian Doyle, not... not _Lister_. "But all this..." he shook his head. Carefree, happily fornicating, masturbating, drinking, smoking, Lister. Deviating himself across the stars. "It can't be true. It'd be too..." perfect. And there was no perfection in the world.

Rimmer barreled over yet another iteration of his smegging denial of reality. "All of that space hero smeg, all of the women, all of the men - it never got you out of my mind."

"Don't make me go through this again!" Anger had given way to fear. Sebastian felt himself starting to believe in Billy.... Rimmer... and he _couldn't_! It was a false hope, one that would be torn away from him and leave him even worse off than he was now. He already had nothing to live for but his job, a job he secretly hated, in those dark moments he allowed himself to admit it. If there was any lower place he could go, Sebastian didn't want to find out about it.

"Then get us _out_ of here!"

"I CAN'T! It's not _real_ ; it can't be! I wanted it to be, Billy - I  
fought it! Fought it every last bit of the way. And you know what it did?  
It spat in my fecking face!"

"You didn't fight hard enough, then," Rimmer sneered.

"Billy - they brought me _Kris_! Remember Kris? Kris Kochanski? I used to date her, long ago. She liked you. I think... I think I loved  
her." Sebastian stared at nothing. Nothing. What he had now. Emptiness.  
"And there was me thinking of the _game memories_ of her!" He  
screwed his eyes shut. "I can't keep doing this to myself. It just means  
more pain."

" _Your_ pain?" Rimmer let go, stepping back, and spread his hands. "What about mine, eh? Coming back after all that time, being dragged into  
this..." He panted, his chest tightening.

Sebastian's face fell. "Oh, eh - I didn't mean..." Billy had never asked to be part of this, had he? Just like Rimmer had never asked to be a space hero. The guilt grew thicker, covering him like a thick, itchy blanket.

"Thinking I'm some brother-humping pervert..." Rimmer gasped. He couldn't  
seem to catch his breath. He was a smegging hologram - he didn't need to  
breathe! But his chest was tightening, burning, making him choke.

Sebastian blushed. Why did he have to keep bringing it up like that? Going  
on about it wouldn't make it go away or make them feel better - it would  
make them feel worse! And the language... well, their mother hadn't taught  
them words like those, that was certain! Then again, Billy had stopped  
speaking like their mother as soon as he was old enough to imitate the  
accents of other families in power, throwing off his heritage like one of  
his dirty overcoats.

Rimmer sucked in a breath. "Then someone tells me it's all a dream in a  
coma - and it's some bird you _forgot_ to tell me about?" He shook  
his head. "Fine, fine. We get out of this, I'll smeg off. Let you two  
have your little _thing_. If you're keeping us in here for  
 _that_..." Rimmer shook his head even more ferociously, as if he  
could fling off all feelings of _Lister_ and _pervert_ and  
 _betrayal_ and the nagging voice of Billy telling them that he was,  
indeed, crap, and that nobody on the level of Sebastian or Lister could  
possibly want him, "then for smeg's sake, don't."

"Coma..." Something nagged at Sebastian; something that, for once, was not  
Lister. "Hey, now... if we was in a coma... why would we've had the same  
dream?" They'd told him he had been in a coma when he woke up at the  
hospital, and in his confused state he had just accepted it. But thinking  
about it now... And now Billy was convinced he'd been told they were in a  
shared coma _now_. Was it just the product of his game-fried mind, or  
was there something more to it?

Rimmer sat on the edge of the chair, drained. "How the smeg should I  
know? I'm just a chicken soup technician. Your tart is probably a rocket  
scientist."

"No, she's a console officer," Sebastian replied, absent-mindedly. Facts  
were shifting around in his mind, jostling into new positions.

"Oh, I bet she consoled you," Rimmer snarked, half-heartedly.

"Hates me," Sebastian mumbled. _Kochanski_. Yes, she had hated him,  
hadn't she? Decked him, more than once. No pinball smile there. Not even a  
pity-shag.

"Ri-ight. Hates you so much that she's desperate to get you out of this."  
How _concerned_ her voice had sounded. How solicitous.

"Not like the old Kris." Who looked like Sebastian's Kris, and which one  
of them was the real thing? The dead woman, or the doomed one?

"Oh, if I have to listen to you talk about Kristine smegging Kochanski one  
more time..." Rimmer rubbed his forehead.

Sebastian had always felt like an older brother, even though Billy was technically older by some minutes. Billy had always seemed so lost, so clumsy, so  
in need of help and so unwilling to accept it. He wasn't used to feeling  
lost himself, scared, worried. He'd conquered those weaknesses long ago,  
or so he'd thought. He turned towards Billy, desperation written on his  
face. "I don't want this to be real. I want you, and Starbug, and Cat and  
Kryten and everyone to be real."

"Everyone," Rimmer muttered, acidly. Convenient that he had managed to  
loop that tart under that faux-unconcerned 'everyone.' She should be the  
only member of that 'everyone' group, unless Lister had a few more tucked  
away.

"I want to live in those smeggy quarters with you and just lock us away to  
shag for weeks. That's what _I_ want," Sebastian finished, sadly. And  
he could, if he were Lister. But he wasn't. There was no way to change  
that, and he wished Billy would stop acting as though Sebastian was the  
only one who could!

He sure as smeg wasn't acting like it. "Well, it's up to you." Rimmer  
shrugged.

"You keep saying that; stop saying that!"

"You _want_ to be mass-murdering Sebastian Doyle with the trick kit?"  
Rimmer snapped. "Go right ahead. And you know what? If you want that  
tart, we might as well just stay here. Shagging random rescued maidens  
and dictators, shagging Langley and his mates - not much difference,  
really." Pointless smegging sex. Had he really thought, back when he was  
alive, that it was so smegging important? Faces of everyone he had  
shagged blurred in his memory, indistinct. Billy's memories were in  
perfect accord.

Of course he didn't _want_ to be Sebastian! Hadn't Billy been paying  
attention? The whole point was that he desperately, violently wanted  
 _not_ to be Sebastian! And this absurd idea his brother seemed to  
have got stuck in his mind that... A name penetrated, finally. Langley?  
What the deviancy had Billy said? Sebastian raised his eyebrow. "You  
what?" He walked over to the chair as Billy put his legs over its arms in  
a funk. Oh, State, _no_. There had been rumors, yes, but Sebastian  
hadn't wanted to believe them. It was too absurd; a secret network of  
homosexual deviants within the Administration itself, using condemned  
citizens to satisfy their vile lusts? Perhaps, he thought grimly, it made  
far too much sense. What had that bastard done to his brother? Driving the  
anger from his voice, he asked again, as softly as he could manage, "You  
what?"

"Mmph." Rimmer tapped his lips with his nails. He felt drained. Lister  
didn't want out, Lister didn't want him, Lister didn't want  
 _something_ that was necessary for them to leave. Whatever it was,  
Rimmer couldn't drag it out.

The look on that haggard face was answer enough. "Hell. You didn't." But  
he had. No, sod that, Langley had! That fucking perverted hypocrite! Rage  
choked Sebastian until nothing else was left inside. No restraint, no  
control, no carefully honed suppression. All of a sudden, things seemed  
clearer than they had in decades. "I'll kill him."

"It doesn't matter," Rimmer muttered.

"I'll smegging kill him, I swear!" With nothing there to hold him down any  
longer, the Lister-persona surged triumphantly up into Sebastian's  
conscious. And if what Sebastian felt was anger, what Lister felt was  
something yet to be named.

Rimmer sighed. Lister was angry at shadows, now. Total smegging waste of  
emotion. "Lister..."

Sebastian grabbed hold of the man who said he was Rimmer, forcing him to  
look into his eyes. "Tell me I'm Lister! Tell me!" That was the key.  
Lister was the key, he always had been. The key to get out of this hell.

Those brown eyes had a way of sucking rationality out of Rimmer.  
"Dave..." He took Lister by the hips.

"Arn..." _Yes._

Words poured out. "I missed you, Dave. I couldn't sleep at night. I  
just... ached, wanting you."

"I dreamed about you; nothing felt right anymore. I couldn't eat."

Rimmer kneaded Lister's hips. "Do you want me back?"

Absurdities. Lister tried to catch his breath. "Want? I can't live without  
you!"

Rimmer sat forward and pulled Lister close, pulling his head in to lie  
next to Rimmer's neck. He wanted to feel the man's heartbeat and his  
breath. "I'm not alive - and I feel that when you're not there. You're  
all that makes me feel... human. Halfway alive." He was rambling, some  
Billy part of him noted. "Not Rimmer the hologram, not Ace the space  
hero. Just... me. The smeghead."

"My smeghead. Mine." It felt so good, his lips against Arn's neck; the  
words barely audible, but they hardly mattered.

Rimmer stroked Lister's back, sniffling a little, feeling Lister do the same.

Lister pulled back a little, looking at that face, those eyes. How could  
ever had seen anyone else in there? "Heh..." He stroked the cheek of  
this man that he loved.

Rimmer raised an eyebrow. "What?"

"Let's go home." And so saying, Lister kissed him.

What a lovely word. Rimmer echoed through the kiss, "Home."

As they lost themselves in one another, the world finally shimmered and  
faded around them. Though they, now finally, unquestionably themselves,  
hardly even noticed.


	5. Chapter 5

Rimmer came back to himself. He was lying on a hard, cold, plastic surface. He was naked, which made the hard and cold bits all the more relevant. He opened his eyes, blinking. A faded, stained plastic ceiling hung over him. Rimmer raised his arm, noting with relief that it was _his_ arm. Solid, sinewy; not skinny and bony like Billy's.

He was _himself_. The thought, the _certainly_ was obvious and immediate, and the only assurance Lister needed. Opening his eyes to the familiar dull greenish gray of a Starbug medi-bay, he started pulling off the multi-colored wires stuck to parts off of his head and body, noticing in the process that he was naked. Fair enough. It might even come in handy with regards to his second priority now that he knew he was him, and alive, and _home_. Nearly falling off the table, he stumbled to his feet and scrambled over to the next table, where - ah, contentment, peace! - Rimmer lay.

Rimmer sat up, gingerly. He patted himself, checking his body and his good bits, making sure they were really _his_. And there was Lister, stumbling over and seeming to want to do the same - he breathed with his mouth open, his grin insanely wide. Rimmer stared at Lister. It was indeed _Lister_ ; his tightly curly hair, his long rasta plaits, his cheery optimistic grin. "Well... that worked," Rimmer commented, stretching.

"Yeees!" So very Arn, so very much his Arn, and here and alive and what joy life could bring you! Lister pulled him in for a hug, because there were no fireworks to send up anywhere, and anyway they didn't have a lighter.

Rimmer hugged him back, slightly bewildered. Just to make sure he wasn't seeing things, he ran one hand up to stroke Lister's hair, twiddling the man's braids with the other hand.

"Welcome home, man," Lister said warmly.

Home. The word started a Blue Alert in Rimmer's mind. Home meant Starbug, which meant a whole host of very complicated things. That list! That list that they _still_ hadn't gone over. Complicated by the existence of that tart. "Yes... you know, I wanted to talk about that," Rimmer said, lifting a hand.

'Talk,' eh? Lister tried not to wince at the word. "Yeah?"

"I have a list back at the ship I should probably pick up." Rimmer nodded. Yes, he really should take the opportunity to do this correctly, everything in its proper order. No more of this running around in alternate universes getting hospitalized and Rehabilitated. That had a way of throwing his plans entirely off course.

Lister nodded. Of course he would have a list. Rimmer made list for everything. He even used to have a list of all his lists, with cross-referencing and a hand-written index, all lovingly filed in an antique filing cabinet which had rested underneath his bunk back on the bug until Lister had set fire to it. _Accidentally_ , mind!

Rimmer narrowed his eyes. Lister was being just a little bit _too_ compliant. Rimmer did not trust Lister's compliance. It had a way of turning into Lister Getting His Way Despite What Arn Might Want. "I mean, just to make sure we're on the same page."

Lister nodded again. When Rimmer got into his 'talking' mood, it was generally best just to go along with whatever he said. Lister knew this - he had just never bothered to do it before. It was generally much more fun to annoy the man. Right now, though? Other priorities. Other, far more urgent priorities. Like the fact that at least two different people had tried to have sex with him too many times without him getting off on it more than once, and he needed an outlet before he smegging _exploded!_

"Before we..." Rimmer moved his hand in a vague copulation-ish gesture. Yes, they definitely needed to get a thing or two straightened out before they tried _that_ again. _If_ they tried _that_ again.

Lister nodded, more urgently this time. He wasn't really listening, but he wholeheartedly agreed with _those_ hand-signals!

"You know."

"Same page, yeah." Lister stared, wondering what the hell he had just said. Rimmer was nodding, seeming somewhat satisfied. Lister hoped he hadn't agreed to something he'd regret later. Although, granted, he would have done pretty much anything to have Arn right there and then.

"Good." He took Lister's shoulder in one hand, turning to the door. He needed to get started on this _right_ away, before he was distracted again.

Lister cast a furtive glance at the door. It was open, but there were no people around. Funny that, really. He'd have thought at least Kryten would have stuck around. With an unclothed Rimmer in front of him though, his mind find it hard to dwell on other things. He turned his attention back to that lovely naked body.

The train of thought about that distraction had brought Rimmer right around to something else to worry about. He latched onto it. "And we should probably figure out what happened, too."

Lister nodded even more urgently. Yes, that too, right after the shagging. The wild, uninhibited shagging that needed to happen pretty damned smegging soon!

"So it doesn' t happen again." Rimmer pursed his lips. "That _tart_ of yours seemed to have some idea," he sneered.

Because he was on a roll, Lister started to give a very, very urgent nod before Rimmer's words caught up with him. He shook his head, preparing to attempt some serious back-tracking, when the sound of voices coming down the corridor made him stop and listen.

Kochanski stormed down the corridor towards the medi-bay, trying to fend off the furious mechanoid on her tail. All right, so Kryten had a right to be upset, but how was she to know? She absolutely did not deserve the panicky dressing-down she was receiving. A civilized, well-worded and to-the-point reprimand - _that_ she would have appreciated. Not this hysterical blathering. Perhaps, she fumed internally, the obsessed mechanoid might stop to think that their argument was making her late for her scheduled check on his precious 'Mister Lister'. "Look, I have _told_ you a million times that I am _sorry_!" She was beginning to regret re-activating his vocal-systems.

Rimmer heard the voice, too; an irate _female_ one, at that, and approaching footsteps. Presumably the two were connected. "Well, if you want me to leave you two to get your thing on, I'll be off..." The voice seemed to be coming very near now. Rimmer's hands flew to cover his penis, his knees coming together. He stood up straight, facing the door with trepidation.

Kryten could not understand how Miss Kochanski was acting. Like it was a perfectly understandable mistake! Like it was just a _teeny_ oversight! Like it hadn't nearly resulted in Mister Lister's death! "How could you _do_ such a thing! For _shame_ , Miss Kochanski!"

Shame this, shame that - she was getting bloody tired of it. No amount of shame, she thought, as she stormed into the medi-bay, would revive Dave and Arnold. "How many times..." she came to an abrupt halt, her eyes wide. There was Lister. Not on his bed, breathing quietly, but _standing_ , looking at her with curiosity. For some reason, a wide-awake naked Lister had a very different effect from a comatose naked Lister on a hospital bunk. And instead of a lifeless hunk of metal, there was... well, a hunk. A broad-shouldered man who bore an uncanny resemblance to that horrid wreck of a man she had known as Arnold Rimmer, but somehow, this man carried himself differently - and it made all the difference.

Rimmer tried to smile. His heart was not in it. This was obviously a dimensional alternate to Kochanski - a little taller, facial bones a little different, and who gave a smeg? It was Kochanski. His face stretched into a rictus that was somewhere between the grin of a corpse and the leer of a pervert. "Nice to... meet you. In person. At last."

Lister gave Kochanski a little wave. With his hand. There were other bits of him that were trying to make their interest known, which was not odd, considering his state of mind. He slapped them down, mentally.

"Oh... er... hi," Kochanski said. Suddenly she felt embarrassed. There was something very disconcerting about finding Rimmer attractive. You didn't want to, and when you found you couldn't help it, you sort of didn't know what to do with yourself. Of course, this was not, she had to remind herself, any Rimmer she had ever known. But that somehow didn't matter. In her mind, thousands of gittish Rimmer-alternates whooped in triumphant glee at the fact that she could not take her eyes off him. She turned her head. Unfortunately, that meant she was looking straight at Dave's... what Kryten usually called his... well, his...

Kryten's eyes widened. Mister Lister was naked! And Miss Kochanski was staring at his in-out bit! It was shameful. "Ma'am!" he said, covering her eyes. Kryten looked back and forth between the boys. It would not do, trying to cover Miss Kochanski's eyes like that. He would have to follow her everywhere, and she would sneak a peek between his fingers - he just knew it. Miss Kochanski had no right to sneak peeks at Mister Lister. Kryten let go of her eyes to grab a psi-scan, and held it in front of Lister's bits, flashing the most genuine smile he could come up with on short notice. The smile slipped as he realized that the psi-scan did not fully cover Mister Lister's in-out bits. Kryten was _sure_ that having them that large must be impractical from any number of angles.

"Erm... Rimmer, this is Kris Kochanski." Lister added, hurriedly, "Not the Kochanski we knew, another Kochanski. From another dimension, like. Erm." There was surely a better, less Rimmer-worrying way of putting that, but it was hard to think with a crazy mechanoid pushing psi-scans at your tackle-box like that.

Rimmer looked at the intruding Kochanski woman, the irritating Kryten bog-bot, Lister, Lister's bits, and then back at Kochanski. "Charmed." With a great deal of effort, he almost made it sound like he meant it.

"Pleased to meet you," Kochanski said. Then, realizing there was something she should probably address, she quickly added, "And sorry. Really." She felt a bit flustered. Much as Kryten's reaction was out of proportion, she _had_ made a rather silly mistake.

_Sorry_? Was that all the woman could offer for the utter smeg she had made of things? Kryten's behavior chips sounded beeps of warning at thinking such a vile word, but really, did any other apply? "She's made an utter _mess_ of things!" He looked at the psi-scan again, and settled for using one syntho-skin hand to cover what the scanner did not.

"Well, yes, I'm afraid that is rather true," Kochanski sighed.

Rimmer had not forgotten Lister's offhand comment about Kochanski being a console officer. "You're a astronavigationist?"

Kochanski nodded. "That is one of my majors, yes."

That meant that she was a superior officer. Let it not be said that Rimmer was lax in protocol. "Ma'am!" he said, standing at attention and saluting. He held the position for a moment before remembering that he was not in uniform, and returned his hands to their previous position.

"How are you both feeling?" Kochanski asked, ignoring that rather odd display. She wasn't quite sure where to place this Rimmer on the git-to-gorgeous scale of personality just yet.

What a smegging good question. Rimmer had just been tallying the answer to that on his own side. It was not an exercise he particularly felt like sharing, so he looked over at Lister.

"Fine," Lister said, a little nervously. Something was going on between Rimmer and Kochanski, and he had never been able to read either of them. Kryten fussing about didn't really help either.

Oh, Mister Lister was very brave to discount his discomfort and danger, but Kryten knew better than to believe the brave face he was putting on. "Mister Lister feels like a hot bath and a good hot cup of tea," Kryten said, firmly. Not to mention a little time away from meddling inter-dimensional succubi.

"Oh, good. I was a little surprised to see you both up on your own, to tell you the truth."

Rimmer choked a little on 'up.' It hooked into a whole subset of the answer to "how are you feeling" that he was trying to sort out.

Kochanski crossed her arms. "I thought I might have to use some stimulants - maybe some dopamenergic agonists - to bring you fully back to consciousness, but you have recovered surprisingly well!" That would not have worked on Rimmer, of course. Truth be told, she could probably have yanked him out the moment she'd gained access to his light bee interface, but then getting Dave out would have been next to impossible. Little white lies, she told herself, trying to assuage her guilt. And it had worked, hadn't it?

Kryten shook his head. "Always overmedicating." Mister Lister needed tea and a bath, not Miss Kochanski's drugs. Kochanski sighed.

While it was somewhat gratifying to see two people - using the term loosely - that Rimmer had no particular love for argue, he had something on his mind that he very much wanted addressed. "Ahem. If you don't mind me asking, just what the smeg happened?"

The 4000-series must have been made with a separate stubbornness subsystem. Kochanski turned to Kryten, fuming. "Could you let it _go_ now, please! I _have_ apologized; what else do you want me to do?" Engrave an apology into his chassis? Fall to her knees in front of Dave and... this led to a somewhat distracting train of thought, given the attention currently being made to Dave's more interesting body parts. She tried to let it go.

Taking care of modesty would not leave his resources free to give a good solid rebuttal to any claims of innocence - or mitigation of guilt - that Miss Kochanski might come up with. Kryten therefore snagged a surgical mask from the side table and hooked it up with straps around Mister Lister's testicles to make an impromptu posing pouch. He then turned to face Miss Kochanski just as she continued speaking.

"I mean, there we were with no water, and there was a perfectly good water-planet nearby. How was I supposed to know there was anything wrong?"

Lister brushed Kryten's hands away and tossed the pouch into a corner angrily. "Lay the smeg off!"

Kryten sighed. Well, it was no surprise that Mister Lister was upset, after what Miss Kochanski did! "She didn't even _think_ to check the water. Not with the most basic of tests!"

Oh, wonderful. Methodology advice from sanitation droids now. It really should not annoy her to the level it did, but it had been a series of long, exhausting days, and had anyone stopped to thank her? No - accusations, accusations, accusations! "I ran tests! They were good tests!"

 

Cat was happy. The last few days had been abnormally clam and quiet. Nobody had disturbed his beauty-sleep, except for Bud Babe a few times early on, but then she'd went away too. He had found a working trouser press in an abandoned locker; his hair was behaving better than ever, and the place even seemed to smell better than usual.

This evening's investigations had led him to the medi-bay, where all sorts of interesting things seemed to be happening. He had heard the noise from several corridors away. He smelled lust, Luscious Legs, and a whole lot of tension. In short, something was going on that was attracting a great deal of attention. Whatever it was, it was not as deserving of attention as _him_ , and so he made his limber, graceful way in to alert everyone to this fact. "Awwwwww!" he said, twirling to give everyone a good view of his dove-grey silk suit with a ruffled blue mock-satin shirt underneath. His twirl came to a halt elegantly, and he grinned, looking straight at... curry stain. Buck naked. A quick flick of his eyes revealed him standing next to someone who, if he had that scribble on his head, would have been a dead ringer for grease-stain - and he was also naked. "Ewwwwww..." Cat slid out again as rapidly as possible, heading for his favorite cozy corner. He needed a bath.

Just another day on the 'bug, Kris thought, barely giving the Cat a glance before turning back to Kryten. "They just didn't test for hyper-evolved psycho-active squid-ink!"

"Hang on..." Lister said. This was starting to sound familiar. Familiar in a Sunday lunch with the in-laws kind of way. Not very pleasant.

"Anyone would have known to test for that!" Kryten shook his head in disbelief. So short-sighted!

This mess of Lister, Lister's too-accomplished tart, disgusted Cat, and irate Kryten was a bit much for one hologram to take, especially after being Billy for a few days. Rimmer closed his eyes and started counting to a very high number.

Lister pondered. "That planet... it was close to where we found Red Dwarf. You didn't..." he looked at Kris, his eyes widening. But oh yes. Judging by the apologetic look on her usually quite attractive face, it was pretty clear that she had indeed.

Kochanski spread her hands helplessly. "How was I supposed to know?" she asked, irritated. "I was never there!"

Kryten was aghast. How was she supposed to know? How about by _listening_? "I told her all about the Despair Squid! You did, too, didn't you, Mister Lister?"

It was Sunday lunch time all right. Almost by instinct, Lister felt reluctant to pick sides, stalling as best he could by hemming and hawing.

Kryten frowned at Lister's gestures. The poor man must not be fully recovered, he thought solicitously. "We most _definitely_ did! And there she goes with her 'Oh, I just found this water somewhere, it's perfectly safe!'"

Kochanski sighed. "Well, I don't see how it matters now anyway; we're all safe and sound. And I flushed the water out and replaced it from that cargo ship we past yesterday."

Even better, Kryten thought. "Oh, and just what was in the cargo ship? Mind-control slug-GELFs?"

"I _tested_ it..." Kochanski said, through gritted teeth. She had just about reached her limit when it came to besserwizzer androids. Especially besserwizzer androids who, when faced with visiting space-heroes, proceeded to lock them in with possibly infected crew-members hoping they would 'sort things out', then went on to scrub the floors with the water they _knew_ were dangerous to anyone with organic parts. Had he forgotten his brain? Well, yes, it would certainly seem so. She bit her tongue, though, determined not to sink to his level and get involved in the blame-game.

A square, indignant finger shook at Kris. "You can test it by drinking it yourself! We've put poor Mister Lister through enough already!"

The distinct feeling that it had all gone past the point of ludicrous and landed at the point of fairly amusing began to creep over Rimmer. His vulture smile, in parallel, began to creep across his face. He gave up on trying to cover himself and sat back on the medical bunk, prepared to enjoy the sniping between Kryten and Lister's tart.

Rimmer smiling was never anything less than disturbing. Rimmer smiling and not bothering to cover himself up when naked was disturbing in too many ways. Lister was starting to worry a little about him. He'd been through a lot, after all.

Dammit, Kochanski thought, taking in the full view of what was supposedly Arnold Rimmer, I turned down _this_? She couldn't even tell herself there might be differences; this was not a dimensional alternate, this was an exact hologrammatic copy. She briefly and irrationally wondered if there was any way to make more copies.

Rimmer frowned at the pause in conversation. "Oh, don't let me interrupt." It had been getting rather entertaining.

"Yes... quite." Kochanski shook herself, sobering at that grating, nasal voice. What _had_ she been thinking? "Anyway, I suppose we should give you boys some breathing room." She raised her eyebrow almost unnoticeably. She wasn't blind. The way Dave kept looking at Arnold? The way, for that matter, he had kept looking at the living Arnold in prison when he thought no one saw, that lost look in his eyes...

Rimmer noticed that eyebrow quirk. That - and the offer - were not in keeping with the scenario he had built up in his mind between her and Lister. "I don't breathe," he replied, warily.

Kochanski ignored him. She'd built up quite a skill for ignoring Rimmers. "There's extra bedding in Dave's quarters, for the spare bunk," she could not keep a twinkle out of her eye, "if you need it."

Rimmer raised an eyebrow at her in return. If she were not aware of the implications of her offer, he'd eat Lister's hat. With curry sauce. Rimmer began to reshuffle the facts slightly in his mind.

Kryten shook his head. Oh, such a _polite_ reminder on Miss Kochanski's part! Still, was it his own fault? No, indeed, it wasn't. "Thanks to the contaminated water supplies, I wasn't able to wash Mister Lister's linens!"

As there was clearly no need for her here, Kochanski turned looked pointedly at Kryten. "I'll just go drink some slug-GELF-infested water then, shall I?" The boys could use some alone-time. As, for that matter, could she. She turned on her toe and left.

Kryten watched her leave. "Of all the insufferable recklessness..." He mentally dismissed her for the moment, however; he had more pressing concerns. He turned to Lister. "Now, why don't you have a nice cup of tea..."

"Krytes, it's all right. We're all right." Something about the combination of Kryten and tea disturbed Lister on a level he didn't quite understand.

"Are you sure?" Kryten asked, worried. "That was _highly_ traumatic!" The things Mister Lister had believed about himself, and about Mister Rimmer, and about Kryten! No relation to reality, of course, but humans were so susceptible to the suggestions of their eyes and ears. Kryten, of course, knew with perfect certainty that it had not been real. Thanks to Miss Kochanski's programming - but no, no _thanks_ were involved. She was merely making amends for her mistake. _Starting_ to make amends for her mistake.

"Yes." He had not, Lister noticed all of a sudden, simply forgotten all of the memories bestowed upon him by the Despair-squid-induced coma. It was there, all of it - an entire lifetime of memories added to his own. The only difference was that he knew them to be false now. Still, they were nonetheless vivid. And some of them... He looked at Kryten, taking a step back. "Yeah." Jake had looked a lot like Kryten had done that time he was human. Always immaculately dressed, very prim, proper. Good with details. Always there when he needed him. Always knew where he was. Watching his every step.

Kryten watched Lister back away, feeling confused. "Mister Lister?"

"I'm... I'm fine Krytes. Fine." It hadn't been Kryten. Not any more than he had been Sebastian, or Rimmer had been Billy. But that was the thing. Billy and Sebastian were just an Arn and a Dave that had lived different lives. And so Jake... Lister tried to force that line of thinking away, shrug it off like the pointless exercise it was, but it lingered. He found he couldn't look directly at the mechanoid.

Kryten understood. Mister Lister had things to do. Those in-out things that he and Mister Rimmer used to do, until Mister Rimmer had left, and it had all been better for a time - once Kryten reminded him of how he had always felt about Mister Rimmer, before all of that confusing in-out business. But now they were back to _that_. Kryten's facial motivators stopped working, making his face droop. "Well... if you don't _need_ me..."

Lister forced a smile. Proper git he was. Krytes shouldn't have to suffer for something that had never been real, all might-have-beens and could-have-beens aside. He searched his mind for something a cleaning-obsessed android might enjoy for fun. "Oh, er... tell you what; why don't you go scrub out the spare water tanks? You know, just in case? They'll need disinfecting and everything too, after that."

Better and better. He was just a sanitation droid to Mister Lister, now; Mister Lister thought of him the way Mister Rimmer had, back when they first met. "Oh, yes - excellent idea. I'll just go and..." Kryten turned to go.

Oh, this was going all to smeg. As Kryten was babbling, Lister stepped over, catching his arm as he was on his way out. Sometimes, the simplest things were the hardest to remember. "Hey. Nice to see ya back, man." He pulled him in for a hug, ignoring the tugs of warning from bits of him that had never really existed. They could sod off.

Always so kind, Mister Lister... Kryten felt his mechano-snifflers activating. "If you had been hurt, Mister Lister... I would never have forgiven myself..."

Hell, Lister thought, I'm naked. _Not good_ , warned what had never been Sebastian. Ah well, that would take some sorting out. Meanwhile, Lister awkwardly patted Kryten's back. "It's all right..."

Kryten looked at Lister's face, feeling a faint hope. "Oh, Mister Lister... do you really think it is?"

Glancing over his shoulder, Lister saw Rimmer staring back at him. "Yeah," he replied, confidently.

Rimmer raised an eyebrow. All right? Well. They were back on Starbug. He was not Lister's brother, and Lister was not a mass murderer. They had fond out what had happened. Kochanski was, apparently, not shagging Lister. However, that brought them right back to square one - the situation they had been in when Rimmer first arrived - didn't it? Smeg it all, he would go get the list. He had been distracted by sex with Lister before, and he wouldn't let that happen again. Sex with Lister. Rimmer walked closer.

Kryten noted Rimmer's movement. Let it not be said, his pride-chip insisted, that he would stand in the way of Mister Lister's happiness. "Well. I'll just..." As Lister nodded, smiling, Kryten glared a little at Rimmer, then walked out. Those water storage tanks were huge. They would take some time to scrub, and then there was all that laundry that had piled up while the water was suspect! He made an internal list.

Rimmer's thought processes had not let go of the whole sex-with-Lister idea. He stepped even closer, putting his hands on Lister's hips. That allowed his erection to lie vertically at Lister's back, pressed between the two of them, his testicles slapping Lister's buttocks lightly. Oh, that was certainly a good idea. He'd have to make a list of the good ideas he came up with.

The unexpected contact made Lister flinch a little, but he caught himself quickly. This was more like it. He leaned back a little with a comfortable sigh. Had Arn's body been like this the last time they'd been pressed together this close? Had those muscles been so firm, those legs so solid? He was warm like any living body, chest heaving as though he was breathing. The word 'comfortable' could begin to describe it, he supposed.

Rimmer took Lister's shoulders in his hands, rubbing them. He slithered back and forth against Lister's back a bit, rubbing his nose in that wiry hair. Oh, yes, this was a _very_ good idea, he thought, as he felt Lister put his hands on his thighs, the smaller body relaxing against his. "You smell like cigarettes," Rimmer said, quietly. He never thought he would be grateful for that reek, but it was so very _Lister_ and so very un- _Sebastian_.

"Yeah," Lister said, comfortably. Comfortable. _Comfortable_. Usually, words lost all meaning when you kept repeating them, but this one just seemed to have meaning added to it. _Arn_ , it meant. _Close_ , and _erection_ and _firm_ and _warm_.

Rimmer leaned his head down, licking Lister's neck. When Lister kissed the side of his head, Rimmer kept his tongue going, up to Lister's lips. Such a relief, to do this without guilt. His memories of Billy's memories tickled him with gratitude. He felt Lister moan a little into his mouth as he returned the kiss sedately. Yes, and he could _feel_ this man, too, all he wanted to. All he wanted to was rather a lot, for Rimmer. He slid his hands back from Lister's shoulders and ran them under the man's armpits (he was atypically _clean_ , Rimmer noted), then farther forward to slide them over Lister's chest. He paused there to rub Lister's pectorals, dusted with wiry hair, and then moved his hands down to Lister's smooth stomach.

After all the frantic, rushed haste of the unreality, knowing they had all the time in the world felt almost intoxicating. Lister could afford to be calm, to breathe calmly, kiss calmly, stroke Rimmer's thighs lazily. It was a bit of a luxury, but a very needed one.

Rimmer was somewhat annoyed that the man could be so calm. He felt less than calm himself as his hands moved over Lister's stomach, rubbing it in harmony with the rub of his erection against Lister's back.

Lister smiled through the kiss, noting the impatience of the other man. Soon enough, he tried to think at him. Soon enough, love.

"Space, I'm glad I have you back," Rimmer murmured. Ah, to think that he would be grateful for the cigarette-odor, for the ticklish braids, for the taste of lager in Lister's mouth.

"I'm glad ye'll have me," Lister mumbled, leaning back against the pressure. That, too, was not something to be taken for granted. He was a lucky man; far more lucky than he deserved.

"If I can," Rimmer muttered. That had been Number Five on the list, hadn't it? He rubbed Lister's stomach, his fingers brushing Lister's cock.

"Any time," Lister said, softly, licking Rimmer's chin.

"Like now?" Rimmer asked, running his fingers along Lister's cock. Quite a handful, that thing was. Quite a mouthful, too. He kissed Lister's forehead.

Such a soft kiss; not like the awkward fumblings of the time before Rimmer left; not like Billy and Sebastian, with pain and guilt ruining the bliss of it. He moved his face away a little to look Arn in the eyes "Like now." He felt serene. Now there was a thing. But it was true. No sense in denying it.

"Oh, _good_." Rimmer deiced that the first thing he had to do, before any thoughts of lists, was to make Lister a little less serene. He licked Lister's ear, rubbing the head of his cock.

Arn was really gone, wasn't he? It wasn't like him to be as oblivious as this. Lister nodded towards the open medi-bay door. "Here?" he asked, slightly amused. Frankly, had Kryten come in and caught them right now, Lister wouldn't have minded. But Rimmer would've, and that was no good.

Rimmer yelped and stepped back quickly. "I didn't notice..." Oh, smeg, he had been about to have sex with Lister with the medi-bay door open! When Kochanski could have walked in, or Kryten, or, Space help him, _Cat_. Rimmer felt his erection wilt.

Lister chuckled a little. "I know." He turned to look at Rimmer, who was looking distinctly uncomfortable and distinctly less erect. Well, they would soon fix that. "Come to bed with me?" He wet his lower lip.

"Yes, sounds like a terrific idea." Rimmer glanced around nervously. Bed - preferably behind a door with a working lock.

Get your act together, Ace, you big bad space-hero, Lister giggled internally, moving in to kiss his cheek. The hologram closed his eyes slightly. "It's all right." Lister stroked Rimmer's arm a little, then took his hand.

Rimmer tried to keep the other hand over his nudity, composing himself in a respectable manner. Smeg, though, there was nothing respectable about shagging a space-bum on a grotty lander. Oh, how his brothers would laugh. If they weren't smegging _dead_ , of course, he thought vindictively. Well, technically, he was, too. And what did it matter who a dead man wanted to have sex with?

"Come on."

Lister was all smiles. Well, he probably pranced around the place naked all the time. It wasn't like he had any sort of reputation of decency to uphold. It was easy for him. "I was hoping to," Rimmer said, faintly.

Lister peeked out, checking that the coast was clear. It was. He felt the faint smell of Kochanski's perfume - the one she usually wore for emergencies - but she was nowhere to be seen. He tugged on Rimmer's hand.

Rimmer glanced nervously from side to side at the doorway before letting himself be tugged out. Oh, he did not want to meet anyone in the corridors! As Lister started moving rather quickly towards his own quarters, Rimmer toddled along behind. Oh, the glamorous life of Ace Rimmer, he sighed internally.

 

Kochanski hummed a few bars of the opening of the second act of Madame Butterfly as she walked to the Medi-bay. All in all, she was feeling rather better. She had run into Kryten on her way over, and the mechanoid had hardly even glanced in her direction, mumbling something about being out of industrial solvent, and having to make some from scratch, and was there ever enough caustic soda? Which meant, hopefully, that she would be spared any further lectures on aquatic safety. She walked in, gingerly. "I thought you might be needing..." her voice trailed off as she looked around at the empty room. "...These." She looked at the bathrobes over her arm, and shrugged. Well, if they didn't need them, well and good. She rather liked this Dave, although she did not love him like she loved _her_ Dave, and the thought that he had found the partner to make him happy pleased her. The thought that he might stop trying to find that partner in _her_ pleased her even more. Well pleased, she left the medi-bay, heading up to make herself a cup of tea from the new water supplies.

 

Lister opened the door to his room, using his elbow on the switch. He tugged at Rimmer, who was still glancing up and down the corridor with great nervousness, yanking him inside with a wide grin. Pulling just so, he made the movement into something like a dance, drawing Rimmer gracefully towards him as the door closed. "Lock." His voice dripped with leering cheekiness, and the door obediently clicked.

Rimmer relaxed as the door slid shut with finality. They were exactly in the position they had been in at the beginning of all of this - locked in Lister's room - but after all that had occurred, Rimmer's viewpoint of the situation was somewhat more positive than it had been. At least he was more certain of a few things regarding Lister - even without the aid of that list. With that thought in mind, Rimmer took Lister's braids in his hands, running them through his fingers, feeling their rough texture. Lister merely stood and watched, so Rimmer tugged at them, enough for the bum to feel it.

The edge of Lister's mouth twitched. "Hey!" he said, amused. He felt it, but it didn't hurt much. You couldn't grow dreadlocks like that with a sensitive scalp.

"Come here." Rimmer pulled steadily on the braids. Smeg his list; he wanted Lister.

Not a game, this. Well, at least not that kind of game. "Oh, eh..." Lister followed the pull eagerly.

Rimmer reeled Lister in, relishing the slow nearing of the man, pulling until Lister was pressed to him and his hands were at the back of Lister's head. He took that head in one hand and kissed Lister's lips firmly. Lister, to his delight and relief, deepened the kiss slowly but oh-so-very deliberately. Rimmer whimpered a little. He took Lister's buttock in his other hand, rubbing as their tongues danced around in each other's mouths.

Here was the heaven that had been yanked away from him in that unreal place. Here, with Rimmer in his arms; his body so close - firm, so definitely _his_. He sighed as he moved his hands slowly over Rimmer's muscles. "Your body." He sucked at Rimmer's neck, stroking downwards towards buttocks he knew (and what joy to have that knowledge) would be toned and tight and very much Arn's.

Rimmer put his head back and sighed, running his hand down to Lister's back. His Billy-memories were still in his mind, and Rimmer was startled to find what he had considered to be a separate personality slotting itself neatly into his own psyche. It stirred desires in him, pushing aside the neuroses that usually took him during sex. It was oddly liberating. He sucked at Lister's neck, then started to lick his way down that irresistible - if somewhat sweaty - chest, his tongue running over the bump of a nipple on his way down. Both of his hands were on Lister's buttocks, kneading.

This was unexpected. Lister gasped a little with the realization of what was happening, or about to happen. Yes, Rimmer _and Billy,_ the remnants of Sebastian added unwelcomely, had done so before, but not with such obvious enjoyment. The sort of enjoyment Lister had always _wished_ for him to allow himself to have. Some of that restriction that had held the man back seemed to have vanished, and whatever Lister had to thank that for, he was thankful.

Rimmer's chin bumped Lister's erection, and he was possessed of an odd, but somehow entirely comfortable, desire to suck it. He had always done it without relish before, and only because it had been _expected_ , he felt. But now, he was hungry for it. He pulled back a little to end up on knees.

Lister felt his whole body shudder. If he'd been aching before, this pushed him into some hitherto unknown realm of desire. "Smeg, I need this..." he said with quiet desperation. Arn sucking him was enough of an incentive, but Arn so clearly _craving_ to suck him? This could possibly kill him.

"Good." Rimmer licked the head, sucking it into his mouth. He did not anticipate the salty, bitter taste with dread as he used to; he merely thrilled to the feel of the vitality of this bit of Lister in his mouth.

Smegging hell; _yes_. This was more than he'd anticipated, and right now, he would have settled for anything. His breathing quickened, his mouth falling open to keep up with it. He grabbed Rimmer's shoulders hard, needing something to hang on to.

Rimmer sucked it in deeper, humming slightly. Yes, he was taking this idea from Billy, but why not? Something good might as well come out of all of that smeg. He rubbed Lister's buttocks and thighs, up and down.

Yes, the shoulders had been a good idea. He wouldn't still be standing upright without them. Lister started shaking, kneading those shoulders, squeezing them. "Need you... _you_."

Rimmer remembered how Billy used to relax his throat, a move so different from the tension Rimmer used to feel when sucking on Lister's cock. He tried that, and it let him suck the cock in more deeply than he had done before; he lashed at the head with his tongue, humming more loudly.

This was unreal. No; it was gloriously, wonderfully real! Lister yelped, looking down, his mouth hanging open. His hips moved with the sucks as he watched Rimmer suck hard, his eyes closed. He knew he shouldn't thrust, knew how hard it was for Arn, usually, to do this at all, but now? He pushed himself into that hot mouth experimentally, gently, trying to hold back.

Ah, this was so easy once he knew what to do! Rimmer sucked eagerly in time with Lister's thrusting. He rubbed Lister's buttocks, feeling their firm resilience under his fingers, hearing Lister laugh breathily and joyously, holding on to his shoulders hard. This new skill set gave Rimmer that same visceral thrill that he experienced when he first learned to ride a motorcycle or to fly the D-J ship. He wanted to _use_ that skill, flexing his new muscles, as it were. He ran his tongue along the underside of Lister's shaft, his throat relaxing to let that stiff cock in even farther.

Feeling his orgasm almost before it was there, Lister yelled a "Yes!" He leaned his head back, coming on an inward thrust, clutching at Rimmer, laughing as he tried to breathe. He couldn't think. He didn't need to. This was home. This was Arn. This was now, and real, and it was all he needed. All he would ever need.

Rimmer swallowed the come that flooded his mouth; there was a lot of it, and he choked and coughed just a little, but he was determined to do this correctly, with precision, and so he kept sucking, whimpering a little. God, he could _do_ this! Ace and Billy both felt joy, but it was Rimmer who whimpered with the intensity of it.

"Hell, Arn... yes..." Lister subsided as his erection did, falling to his knees. He grabbed for Rimmer's face, needing to kiss him. Needing more of this closeness, even though desire was sated. For now, at least.

Rimmer still floated on what had almost been a shared orgasm. He kissed Lister back, his tongue thrusting into the man's smoky, lager-y, delicious mouth. He grabbed Lister's shoulders for balance. He had been kissing as though he did not, but the fact was that Lister _did_ need air. During one of his sporadic breaks, Rimmer noted that some of Lister's come was still on his chin. He licked it off, his eyes shining. Didn't he find come to be disgusting, before? Well, it would still be disgusting - sticky and crusty - once it dried. But for the moment, it was alluring.

The image of Rimmer's tongue, lean and pale like the man himself, sneaking out and licking, oh so sensuously... Lister panted, meeting his eyes. Reality, he thought. Reality. "Arn..."

"Yes?" Rimmer asked, arching an eyebrow.

Hit, all at once, with the joy of what they had here and now, Lister laughed and showered Rimmer with kisses. The lines of his face needing to be caressed; the scar that was there once again, so easy to trace, the hair practically asking to be mussed up by his eager fingers. He did it all, all.

Rimmer accepted this, not keeping up very well. Lister's mouth fluttered around him like a woodpecker ducking into a dead tree; he gave up and let Lister peck him all over his face. But his own erection was screaming for attention, and he grasped it, pumping.

He was forgetting himself. He never used to allow himself to come first. Was he getting old? Chiding himself, Lister looked down, taking Rimmer's hand away gently and putting his own in its place. Well, at least he could do it right now he was finally here. Need shone in Rimmer's eyes as Lister locked onto them, slowly beginning to stroke. Arn moaned in response, sitting back a bit to let Lister have better access to his cock. Lister kept his pace, kept his eyes locked on Arn's, fascinated by the change he saw in them. There was the years of being Ace. So many - almost twice his own age in years, and Billy's potential life on top of that. Lost in that hazel maze, Lister licked his free hand, anticipating the change what he planned would bring. Pleasure. Arn deserved so much of it.

It was lovely, but it was far too slow. Rimmer's testicles were insisting that he needed to come _now_. "More," he said with a whiny sigh, thrusting a little to try to increase the pace.

Yes, there would be more. Lister finished licking his hand, still keeping that slow pace. He had a plan, and he was sticking to it. In an instant, he swapped hands, not missing a beat, and not changing tempo either. Deliberate. That was the word. Slow and deliberate.

Rimmer sighed in frustration. "Faster, _please_..." One hand moved to Lister's shoulder, the other to the man's hip. He would need the anchors when he came, he was sure. _If_ he came. Would Lister smegging well speed up?

"Faster?" Lister asked innocently, as though not comprehending. Oh, but there was pain in those beautiful eyes now, and that would not do. "Dunno if I can do that. Might need," one last look before he ducked down - that view was addictive, "some help." He sucked the cock in from top to bottom, feeling renewed lust. He needed this too. Smeg yes, did he ever.

Hot, wet _mouth_ , Rimmer's brain said, and then shut down. "Smeg, yes." Rimmer grasped Lister's hair with the hand that was on his hip; he kept the other hand on Lister's shoulder.

No more teasing now. Lister wasn't sure he could have done so if he'd tried. Driven on as though chasing his own orgasm, Lister sucked hard and fast, licking what was inside, grabbing Rimmer's buttocks and pushing him farther in, until he would go no further. He needed more.

Rimmer bucked, panting, and came in a few thrusts. "Listy..." he whined as the world spun. He thrust erratically into Lister's mouth as he came, all other sensations fading into the background for a moment.

Lister sucked at the disappearing come happily, welcoming its familiar tingling on his tongue, on the roof of his mouth as it surged in. He kept pace until there was nothing to draw out, and when Rimmer was done, he let the cock fall out of his mouth, collapsing against his groin. He was... drained, yes, but it was a good kind of drained. Like after a good run or a bout of sit-ups. Though how would he know that? No matter. He did.

Rimmer let go of Lister to put his hands behind him on the floor, supporting himself. The room was tilting crazily; he felt light-headed and weak.

Lister was still holding Rimmer's buttocks tightly. Not a bad pillow, this, though sleeping on the floor would just not do. He kissed Rimmer's groin just above his cock-level, then licked his way up Rimmer's chest, slowly. Rimmer looked down as he approached, and Lister met his eyes again, smiling as well as his outstretched tongue could manage. He came to the top of Rimmer's chest and stopped. Rimmer opened his mouth and reached his head down, and Lister rose to meet him, letting Rimmer lick his mouth thoroughly, using one arm to rub Lister's back as Lister grabbed his head. Though he knew he wouldn't, something inside him cried that Arn might disappear, that all this could be gone in an instant unless he held on, so he did. Wild, curly hair, he thought, leaning into Rimmer, relaxing like a whole-body sigh.

Rimmer felt every bit of energy in his body seeping out. "I missed you," he mumbled.

Lister weaved the fingers of one hand into Rimmer's hair. "Smeg, I missed you." Had missed that hair, those lips he now kissed, one by one.

"I'm glad you're not a mass-murdering despot," Rimmer sighed.

And may you never understand how much of me is in him, Lister thought, forcing a smile. "I'm glad yer you." He kissed Rimmer's cheek. "And here."

As he rubbed Lister's back, Rimmer could not help thinking about himself, as Billy, sucking Sebastian in that dank cell. He tried to draw his thoughts away from there. The drive to Sebastian's house? Certainly. "You _did_ have a nice car." Too bad that Langley's had been such crap.

Lister rested his forehead on Rimmer's, giggling. "Always with the cars..." He paused, as another, not as pleasant aspect of their reality hit. "Or the ships."

Rimmer nodded. The ships. The D-J ship, the one with the list on it; the one he lived out of, was Ace out of. The one that was still resting in Starbug's landing bay. The one he was going to have to do something with. What, he did not know. "Well."

Lister stroked Rimmer's sides, a little helplessly. Helpless was good though. He had 'helped' too much, when it came to this.

"It's Ace's ship. Not really mine." Rimmer's tired state was not helping him analyze the situation. He had not thought beyond speaking with Lister when he came back. He had not thought things out well at all, he realized. He had no idea what to _do_.

Those hazel eyes, though still lovely, revealed nothing. "Who're you then?"

A very good question. Rimmer looked up at the ceiling, gnawing at his lip. He was no longer the Rimmer he was, certainly. He was not as gittish as Ace, however, or as heroic. And now there was a bit of Billy in him, as well. He was some intersection of the bits of them, and Rimmer was not sure it was enough to make one person out of. "I don't really know."

Fair enough. Truth be told, Lister wasn't entirely sure who he was now, either. David Lister, certainly, but perhaps not the David Lister he had fooled himself into believing he was. Settling against Rimmer's chest, he asked "Are ye mine?" His eyes were open, and he chewed a little at his lip. If he had to know anything, it would be that.

Rimmer shrugged. "I think that's about the only thing I _am_ fairly certain of."

All right then. What else did he need, really? Lister exhaled calmly, and held Rimmer tighter.

Rimmer patted Lister's back somewhat abstractedly, still looking at the ceiling. What a good question. Who was he? What was he supposed to do? Leave Lister and be Ace? Find another Ace? Be the first Ace to give up the position? Break the chain? "I didn't think this one through very well." Lister kissed his chest, just staying there, not volunteering anything. Rimmer shifted. He had just finished rescuing a small royal family from evil hamster-GELFs one dimension and liberating five worlds from the domination of sentient automobiles in another one when he came to visit Starbug, and the events that had happened since had not left him rested and cognizant. All he wanted to do, he realized, was sleep. "Can we go to bed? My knees ache."

"Can't ask nothing of ya. Just glad yer here now." Oh. Right. Lister caught himself. "Oh, yeah. Yeah." He moved off Rimmer and stumbled to his feet, scratching his back. Rimmer got to his feet with a small groan, fisting his no doubt sore, stiff back, and Lister found he did not know quite where to look, all of a sudden.

Noting this, Rimmer put his hand on Lister's cheek. "What?"

All good things, Lister thought, stealing a glance. "How long?"

Rimmer looked down at his limp cock. What kind of a question was that? Yes, _yes_ , Lister's was bigger. By rather a lot. Did the man want that _quantified_ , now?

And Rimmer claimed _Lister_ had a one-track mind. He gave a quick smile. "I mean... how long are ya staying. Here."

Rimmer shrugged helplessly. "Like I said.. I really didn't think this one through. I wasn't sure I'd stay five minutes."

"Right."

"I wasn't sure I'd be _welcome_ to stay five minutes." Bitterness seeped into Rimmer's voice. Had Lister forgotten that _he_ was the one who had pushed Rimmer away?

Which was perfectly understandable, but so smegged up, wasn't it? Desperate frustration swelled in Lister. Dammit, he wanted Arn here, no matter if he deserved it or not. "What I wouldn't've done to have ya here just five minutes..."

Rimmer frowned and tugged Lister closer. Well, fine. How was he supposed to know how long Lister wanted him there? "How long do you want me to stay?"

An easy question, at last! Though easy... Lister pulled Arn closer, and snorted a confused laugh. "As long as I can have ya. As long as you want." He kissed his chest.

Rimmer looked up at the ceiling contemplatively. The ceiling - dingy and grey - was somehow very conducive to thought. Or maybe it was just that it wasn't Lister, who was naked and glowing and not conductive to thought at all. "I'll have to figure out what to do with the ship. The Ace thing, and all. It's rather fun, really."

Lister rocked him a little. "Won't ask nothing of ya..."

"I remember it can get a little... cramped here." After all, this would not be about Lister and Rimmer shagging until the end of eternity. It would be about hunting for Red Dwarf, hunting for a home; it would be about too-close quarters and too-short supplies, about sniping and arguing and bitterness, compounded by the presence of Cat and Kryten and that damned accomplished console officer.

Blurry eyes, wetness spilling against Rimmer's chest. Lister's tried to turn his world into one of simple sensory impressions. They were less complicated to deal with. Less likely to leave him stranded and directionless again. "Yeah. I've no rights. Gave them up."

Rimmer pulled back to look at Lister. He had never heard the man's voice so dark, not even when he had been despairing and so eager to leave Red Dwarf (and Rimmer) that he altered history. Lister's eyes were a little red. Rimmer closed his eyes for a moment. This problem was knotty, and he was exhausted. Smeg it all, he could not solve it right then and there. "Let's sleep on it, shall we? It's been an interesting few days."

Lister sniffled a little. "Yeah."

Rimmer moved to the bunk, pulling Lister. He paused before getting into it, however, as Lister stumbled after him. This was _Lister's_ bunk. Rimmer looked it over for evidence of toenail clippings and crisp crumbs. He was startled to see none. It was as clean as his old bunk. Rimmer could not deal with all of these changes, he thought, exhaustedly. He prodded the bunk, and when it lay there in a very benign, bunkish manner, Rimmer got into it, putting all of his worries on the nightstand and telling them to call him in the morning. They promised him they would.

Some things never changed, Lister thought, watching him. The universal constant that was Arnold Rimmer's distrust of his personal grooming habits and hygiene had never felt so welcome. "It's quite safe," he chuckled, watching Rimmer lie down, his expression unreadable.

Rimmer held out one arm, and Lister clambered in next to him, settling against his body. Rimmer wrapped his arm around Lister, and found that it was just as comfortable as he remembered. _Shower_ , some part of him said, and he told it irately that he would not be getting up until after he had slept a bit.

For now, at least, there was the two of them, Lister thought, holding Rimmer possessively. For now, at least, he could hold onto this man, and when morning came, morning came, and what would happen would happen. But it would be Arn's choice, and his alone, and that in itself would be a comfort. He breathed, his eyes open. Sleep could come later. If there were no more nights of this, he would at least have the memory of this one. Rimmer, however, did sleep; his eyes closed, and Lister soon heard his whiffly sleep-breathing. And after a few, cautious moments, Lister smiled.

 

Kochanski coughed politely as she entered her own room, feeling a bit silly. It _was_ her room, after all. But it just seemed - well - polite. Not that Cat, sprawled across her bunk wearing carefully embroidered navy-blue silk pajamas, would have cared. "I won't be needing these after all," she said, placing the neatly folded robes on the folding table.

Cat snorted, and slid elegantly to an upright position. "You think I wanna use those dirty old things now?" He looked at them as though they were used hospital gowns. "No thanks."

Kochanski frowned. "They didn't wear them, you know."

"I don't care." He pushed the table away with distaste, and got to his feet. "They were _going_ to wear them. I can't wear nothing that was supposed to touch Butterball and Scrabble-face's naked bodies." He gave a shudder. "I _might_ be able to salvage some of the fabric. We got any caustic soda?"

"Ask Kryten." She sighed, sitting down on the bed. "They didn't ask, by the way."

"Didn't ask about what?"

She rolled her eyes. "Honestly, do you remember any of our conversations."

Cat paused for a moment, his pyjama-top half way off. "No."

"They did not ask," Kochanski explained patiently, "why you and I were not affected."

The blue silk top sailed away and floated gently into Kochanski's laundry basket. He frowned. "Affected by what?"

"The despair squid ink." Kochanski watched the gleaming, naked torso, counting slowly to ten.

"Right, right." The trousers, quite swiftly, went the way of the top. Naked now, he turned towards her, incisors gleaming. "Why weren't we affected?"

Best shag you ever had, Kochanski kept repeating to herself, patting the mattress beside her. "Because we were here. Remember? I was going to take a shower, and you jumped at me from the top of my closet."

"I don't remember that," Cat mumbled, slinking down next to her. "Why, was it important?"

In the room next to her, a snoring rather more nasal than Dave's rang out, and Kochanski, looking at the eyes now watching her, glowing slightly in the half-light, couldn't help but smile. "Not really."


End file.
